UNlV^R-MTf  OP 

CALIFORNIA 

SAN  DIEGO 


f/i 


TRIMALCHIO'S   DINNER 


A   Roman   Revel. 


TRIMALCHIO'S 
DINNER 

BY 

PETRONIUS   ARBITER 

TRANSLATED    FROM     THE    ORIGINAL    LATIN    WITH 

AN    INTRODUCTION    AND    BIBLIOGRAPHICAL 

APPENDIX 

BY 

.  HARRY   THURSTON    PECK 

Illustrated 


NEW    YORK 

DODD,  MEAD    AND   COMPANY 

1898 


Copyright,  1898, 
By  Dodd,  Mead  and  Company. 


Sanibersttg  Press: 
John  Wilson  and  Son,  Cambridge,  U.S.A. 


C-PETRONII-ARBITRI 
CENA-TRIMALCHIONIS 


ANGLICE  •  REDDIDIT  •  ET  •  PROCEMIO  •  CUM  •  APPENDICE 
BIBLIOGRAPHICA  •  INSTRUXIT 

HENRICVS  •  THURSTON  •  PECK 


NOVI-  EBORACI 

SUMPTIBUS-  ET-  TYPIS 

DODD • MEAD    ET-  SOC 

MDCCCXCVIII 


Cantabrigtae 

FORMIS    DESCRIPSERVNT     WiLSONES 


Preface 

IT  is  obvious  that  the  ordinary  canons 
of  the  translator's  art  cannot  be  appHed 
to  one  who  undertakes  to  render  into  Eng- 
lish a  production  so  absolutely  unique  as 
the  Cena  Trimalchionis.  This  curious  frag- 
ment, containing  as  it  does  the  most  perfect 
specimens  that  we  have  of  the  so-called  ple- 
beian Latinity,  —  the  idiom  of  the  Roman 
rabble  as  distinct  from  the  literary  language 
of  cultivated  men,  —  is  so  filled  with  words 
and  phrases  that  find  no  parallel  elsewhere 
in  existing  Latin  literature,  and  the  conver- 
sation of  the  characters  introduced  in  it  is 
so  coloured  with  argot  and  with  slang,  as  to 
make  anything  like  a  literal  translation  quite 
impossible.  I  have  endeavoured,  therefore, 
to  give  in  the  English  version  a  rendering 


vi  Preface 

that  shall  faithfully  reproduce  the  spirit  of 
the  original,  while  adhering  as  closely  to  its 
actual  form  of  expression  as  its  peculiarities 
allow.  This  is  often  easier  than  one  might 
at  first  imagine  ;  for  the  coincidences  existing 
between  the  slang  of  ancient  Rome  and  the 
slang  of  modern  England  and  America  are 
at  times  extremely  striking,  —  a  fact  which 
at  some  future  time  I  hope  to  make  the 
subject  of  a  special  monograph.  But  where 
there  exists  in  the  vernacular  of  to-day  no 
exact  equivalent  of  the  Roman  idiom,  I 
have  endeavoured  to  find  a  modern  phrase 
that  shall  be  at  any  rate  a  cognate  one  ;  and 
this  has  in  almost  every  instance  been 
entirely  feasible.  Yet  the  task  as  a  whole 
has  been  not  unlike  the  task  of  one  who 
should  endeavour  to  turn  the  Chimmie 
Fadden  stories  into  Spanish  or  Italian. 

Again,  apart  from  the  colloquialisms  so 
abundant  in  the  Latin,  there  are  many 
allusions  to  matters  and  things  which  are 
not  only  peculiar  to  the  time  at  which  the 


Preface  vii 

Cena  was  written,  but  which  are  very  local 
and  ephemeral  in  their  nature ;  and  with 
these  I  have  had  to  deal  as  best  I  might. 
One  short  passage  (§  ^6)  has  been  entirely 
omitted  because  of  the  utter  impossibility  of 
representing  in  an  English  form  the  string 
of  puns  which  it  contains  and  which  if  not 
satisfactorily  imitated  in  the  English  would 
leave  the  translation  wholly  void  of  mean- 
ing. Here  and  there  I  have  modified  a  few 
sentences  so  as  to  soften  the  unnecessary 
coarseness  of  the  original. 

The  translation  is  based  principally  upon 
the  Latin  text  as  edited  by  Biicheler  {editio 
minor ^  Berlin,  1895);  ^^^^  ^  have  had  before 
me  also  the  text  of  Friedlander  (Leipzig, 
1 891)  as  well  as  all  the  early  variorum  edi- 
tions. The  French  version  by  De  Guerle 
and  the  English  version  by  Kelley  have 
likewise  been  compared,  though  with  very 
little  profit. 

The  book  is  given  to  the  public  in  the 
hope  that  it  will  prove  of  interest  both  for 


viii  Preface 

the  first-hand  picture  which  it  contains  of 
some  curious  phases  of  Roman  private  life 
under  the  Empire,  and  for  the  value  which 
it  possesses  in  representing  one  stage  in  the 
evolution  of  realistic  fiction. 

HARRY   THURSTON   PECK. 

New  York:   August   i,  1898. 


Table  of  Contents 


Page 

Preface     

V 

Introduction  — 

I.    Prose  Fiction  in  Greece  and  Rome  . 

I 

11.    The  Novel  of  Petronius   .      .     .     . 

45 

III.    The  Cena  Trimalchionis  .     .     .     . 

62 

Trimalchio's  Dinner 

73 

Bibliographical  Appendix 

189 

Index  to  the  Introduction     .     .     .     . 

197 

Illustrations 


Page 
A    Roman    Revel Frontispiece 

"  Beware  of  the  Dog  "  (Pompeian  Mosaic)     76 

Interior  of  Roman  House 92 

Roman  Cookshop 100 

Roman  Barber-shop 106 

Gladiatorial  Contest no 

Roman  Youth 114 

Interior  of  Roman  House 128 

Peristyle  in  Roman  House 136 

Roman  Actors 140 

Restoration    of    Interior    of    Pompeian 

House 148 

Toilet  of  a  Roman  Lady 158 

Roman  Chariot  Race 166 

Cistern  in  Roman  House 172 


Introduction 
I 

PROSE   FICTION   IN   GREECE 
AND    ROME 

AMONG  the  ancient  Greeks,  prose  fic- 
tion never  attained  to  the  importance 
which  it  possesses  in  the  literature  of  modern 
times.  The  reasons  which  explain  this  fact 
are  not  difficult  to  discover.  In  the  first 
place,  the  genius  of  the  Greeks  in  the  sphere 
of  the  imagination  found  its  most  natural 
expression  in  those  forms  of  literature  that 
are  poetical.  The  true  fiction  of  that  re- 
markable people  is  to  be  discovered,  there- 
fore, in  their  heroic  verse,  in  the  Homeric 
epics,  in  the  national  myths  of  the  Cyclic 
writers,  and  in  the  great  masterpieces  of  the 
tragic  poets  ;  for  the  Greek   fancy  was  too 


2  Introduction 

lively,  too  vivid,  and  too  unrestrained,  to 
confine  itself  to  the  limits  of  even  the  finest 
prose.  In  the  second  place,  the  emotional 
life  of  the  Hellenes  lacked  one  important 
element  that  has  vivified  and  given  beauty 
and  significance  to  the  fiction  that  is  written 
for  the  modern  world.  The  one  unfailing 
theme  around  which  our  modern  novelists 
build  their  imaginative  work  is  romantic 
love,  —  that  feeling  for  woman,  blended  of 
reverence  and  tenderness  and  affection,  which 
is  not  a  casual  impulse  or  an  incidental  man- 
ifestation of  temperament,  but  which  is  ex- 
tremely fundamental,  in  that  it  lies  so  close 
to  our  whole  conception  of  domestic  life  and 
social  stability  as  to  be  interwoven  to  a  cer- 
tain extent  with  the  very  fabric  of  our 
society.  But  among  the  Greeks,  to  all  in- 
tents and  purposes,  it  had  no  existence 
whatsoever.  The  Greek,  on  that  side,  was 
essentially  an  Oriental.  In  his  home  life, 
woman  was  an  inferior  being,  the  manager 
of  his  household,  the  mother  of  his  children, 


Introduction  3 

a  domestic  necessity,  but  nothing  more. 
He  kept  her  secluded  from  the  world  at 
large,  and  she  never  influenced  his  thought 
nor  shared  his  serious  preoccupations.  The 
women  who  were  to  some  extent  his  com- 
panions and  confidantes  were  the  hetara^  and 
with  these  he  enjoyed  something  of  the  intel- 
lectual companionship  and  sympathy  which 
all  men  crave,  and  which  in  its  perfec- 
tion can  come  to  them  only  from  congenial 
association  with  the  other  sex.  Yet  the 
hetdcra^  whatever  may  have  been  their  clever- 
ness, their  knowledge  of  the  world,  and 
their  personal  charm,  were  still  women 
whom,  from  the  very  circumstances  of 
their  lives,  their  male  companions  could  not 
reverence  and  respect ;  and  therefore,  here 
again,  the  love  that  forms  the  staple  of  all 
modern  fiction  had  no  real  place.  Finally, 
the  use  of  prose  as  a  medium  for  imagina- 
tive work  of  this  description  was  not 
seriously  attempted  until  Greek  genius  had 
entered   upon    the    period    of  its    decline. 


4  Introduction 

and  until  not  only  taste  and  morals,  but 
creative  imagination,  had  equally  fallen  into 
the  beginnings,  at  least,  of  an  accelerated 
decadence. 

Therefore  we  find  in  most  of  the  prose 
fiction  that  has  come  down  to  us  from 
antiquity  three  characteristic  traits,  —  a  lack 
of  variety  in  its  themes,  a  lack  of  interest  in 
its  treatment,  and  a  lack  of  originality  in  its 
form.  There  are  exceptions  to  this  general 
statement,  and  these  will  be  exhibited  here- 
after ;  but  their  existence  serves  only  to 
accentuate  and  bring  into  a  stronger  and 
more  pronounced  relief  the  truth  that  has 
been  here  enunciated. 

The  origin  of  prose  fiction  is  to  be 
sought  in  the  history  of  the  Fable,  and  the 
Fable  grows  out  of  a  desire  to  explain  the 
phenomena  of  nature  and  to  give  to  the  ex- 
planation a  concrete  form.  It  represents 
also  a  childish  love  of  the  picturesque  that 
endows  rocks  and  stones  and  trees  with  life, 
and  gives  the  power  of  speech  to  animals ; 


Introduction  5 

and  it  also  mirrors  forth  a  fondness  for  alle- 
gory and  apologue  whereby  some  truth, 
some  fact,  is  photographed  upon  the 
memory  through  the  fascinating  medium  of 
a  story.  Pure  fiction,  therefore,  as  distinct 
from  religious  and  semi-religious  myth,  first 
took  on  a  definite  shape  in  the  Beast  Fable, 
which  is  the  one  form  of  story  to  be  found 
in  every  quarter  of  the  earth,  at  every  period 
of  history,  and  in  the  lore  of  every  race, 
from  Egypt  to  the  South  Pacific,  and  from 
the  savage  Indian  of  our  Western  plains  to 
the  still  more  savage  African  of  the  Bantu 
tribes. 

It  is  probable  that  it  is  from  Asia  that 
the  Greeks  and  Romans  first  derived  their 
models  for  this  form  of  literature,  and  that 
it  was  the  Hindus  who  first  evolved  the 
very  famous  stories  which  bear  the  name  of 
Bibpai,  and  which  in  after  times  ^sop, 
Babrius,  and  Phaedrus  made  so  popular  in 
Europe. 

It  is  not  alone,  however,  the  Beast  Fable 


6  Introduction 

that  arose  out  of  humanity's  ignorance  in 
the  days  of  its  childhood.  A  swarm  of 
superstitions  that  are  as  universal  as  human 
life  itself  all  found  their  utterance  in  the 
folk-lore  of  Greece  and  Rome.  Man  in  the 
world's  first  centuries,  before  he  was  gathered 
into  tribes  and  clans,  and  before  he  had  begun 
to  feel  the  social  instinct  strong  upon  him, 
lived  in  an  infinite  solitude  amid  the  unbroken 
forest  and  illimitable  desert,  with  only  two 
or  three  companions  at  the  most,  his  mate 
some  savage  woman  whom  he  had  seized  and 
carried  off  and  made  his  captive,  and  about 
him  his  fierce  young  brood,  who  threaded  with 
him  the  lairs  of  beasts  in  the  dark  jungles  of 
the  forest.  In  this  profound  loneliness,  his 
unfettered  imagination  —  the  imagination  of 
a  child  —  peopled  the  desert  with  a  myriad 
living  creatures.  In  the  whisper  of  the  wind 
among  the  leaves  at  dead  of  night,  he  heard 
the  sibilant  voices  of  beings  who  dwelt  in 
the  heart  of  the  forest  trees.  In  the  half- 
seen    shadows    moving   to    and  fro   in    the 


Introduction  7 

dimly  lighted  glades,  he  saw  strange  creatures 
who  evaded  him  at  his  approach.  His 
dreams  at  night  were  as  real  to  him  as  what 
he  saw  by  day,  for  he  had  not  learned  as  yet  to 
distinguish  between  subjective  and  objective 
happenings.  In  sleep  there  came  to  him 
the  forms  of  those  companions  who  had  died  ; 
and  these  visions  convinced  him  that  death 
is  but  another  form  of  sleep,  and  does  not 
really  put  an  end  to  all.  When  the  fever 
of  the  jungle  laid  its  hot  hand  upon  him,  and 
he  tossed  about  upon  his  bed  of  leaves  in 
the  delirium  of  disease,  and  strange  shapes 
and  monstrous  images  flitted  before  his  sight 
and  brooded  over  him,  he  remembered  them 
as  real,  and  on  recovering  told  his  vision  to 
his  unquestioning  fellows.  Thus  arose  the 
primitive  belief  in  wood  nymphs  and  fountain 
goddesses,  in  fauns  and  satyrs,  in  ghosts  and 
fairies,  in  demons  and  vampires.  It  is  a 
subject  for  infinite  regret  that  the  classic 
literatures,  as  we  possess  them  now,  are  almost 
wholly  silent  here,  and  give  us  only  the  most 


8  Introduction 

tantalising  half  glimpses  and  vanishing  sug- 
gestions of  the  curious  and  fascinating  nature- 
myths  of  the  common  people,  and  of  the 
stories  in  which  these  myths  were  handed 
down.  The  writers  whose  works  we  now 
possess,  the  makers  of  literature  in  its  con- 
ventional meaning,  despised  these  legends  of 
the  ignorant,  these  old  wives'  tales  and 
peasant  lore  ;  so  that  it  is  only  here  and  there 
that  we  detect  a  trace  of  what  has  been 
irrevocably  lost.  Such  are  the  stories  of  the 
Nymphs,  as  for  instance  that  which  tells  of 
the  love  of  Echo  for  Narcissus,  and  the 
legend  of  Hylas  and  the  Naiads.  Such  again 
is  the  exquisite  narrative  of  Cupid  and  Psyche 
which,  as  preserved  in  Apuleius,  still  begins 
with  the  good  old  formula,  "  Once  upon  a 
time  in  a  certain  city  there  lived  a  king  and 
queen."  But  these,  as  we  have  them  now, 
are  very  far  from  being  fairy-stories  of  the 
primitive  sort.  They  are  too  artistic,  too 
highly  coloured,  and  too  artificial ;  and  they 
serve  only  to  give  us  a  clue  to  the  existence 


Introduction  9 

of  the  wonder- tale  in  remote  antiquity. 
Our  modern  conception  of  a  fairy  seems  to 
contain  a  blending  of  two  ancient  ideas  that 
are  quite  distinct,  —  that  of  the  Nymphs,  and 
that  of  the  Fates,  to  which  fact  the  word 
"  fairy  "  (or  more  correctly  "  fay")  bears  wit- 
ness in  its  derivation,  through  the  French 
fee,  from  the  Low  Latin  y"^//^z  and  the  classical 
fatum. 

The  household  fairy  of  the  Romans  was 
the  Lar,  who  watched  over  the  home  as  did 
the  English  Robin  Goodfellow,  but  more 
especially  the  exterior  of  the  home,  as  the 
Penates  guarded  the  interior.  The  belief 
in  the  Lares  has  a  close  connection  with 
ancestor-worship,  since  the  Lares  were  the 
souls  of  the  ancestors  of  the  family  hovering 
about  the  family  abode  with  friendly  pur- 
pose. The  converse  of  the  Lar  is  the  Larva, 
the  ancient  prototype  of  our  modern  nursery 
bugaboo,  —  a  malignant  spirit  who  prowled 
about  in  some  hideous  form,  such  as  that  of 
a  skeleton,  to  strike  with  madness  all  living 


lo  Introduction 

persons  who  gazed  upon  him.  Identified 
with  the  Larvas  were  the  Lemures,  whom  in 
May  of  each  year  the  head  of  every  house- 
hold propitiated  by  going  forth  at  midnight 
to  wash  his  hands  three  times  in  fresh  spring 
water,  after  which,  taking  three  black  beans 
into  his  mouth,  he  pronounced  a  formula 
and  cast  the  beans  upon  the  ground  for  the 
Lemures  to  gather  up.  The  ceremony  was 
ended  by  beating  together  brazen  vessels,  and 
crying  out  nine  times  an  exorcism  to  the 
spectres,  the  whole  bearing  a  striking  resem- 
blance to  the  rites  now  practised  by  the 
Chinese  at  the  burial  of  their  dead.  Still 
another  form  of  elf  or  fairy  was  the  Incubo, 
an  inhabitant  of  the  depths  of  the  earth, 
where  it  lived  among  the  veins  of  gold  and 
silver  in  the  heart  of  great  mountains,  its 
abode  being  supported  by  columns  of  jasper 
and  glittering  with  the  precious  metals.  The 
Incubo  is  the  mythological  ancestor  of  the 
Scandinavian  Black  Fairy,  of  the  German 
Kobold,    and    of    the    Irish     Leprechaun. 


Introduction 


1 1 


Little  allusion  is  made  to  it  in  ancient  liter- 
ature, but  from  a  passage  in  Petronius  there 
seems  to  have  been  a  story  that  if  one  could 
steal  the  hat  of  an  Incubo,  the  treasure  over 
which  he  watched  could  easily  be  found  ;  and 
this  myth  finds  a  modern  parallel  in  the 
German  story  of  John  Dietrich  which  Miss 
Mulock  has  made  familiar  to  the  children  of 
America  and  England. 

Belonging  to  the  purely  horrible  are  the 
legends  of  Lamia,  the  traditional  bugbear  of 
the  nursery,  who  was  invoked  to  terrify  dis- 
obedient children.  Some  remnants  of  these 
tales  survive,  and  are  preserved  by  Diodorus 
Siculus,  Suidas,  Plutarch,  Strabo,  and  the 
scholiast  on  Aristophanes.  The  popular 
account  makes  her  to  have  been  a  Libyan 
princess  whose  beauty  was  so  great  as  to 
attract  the  love  of  Zeus  himself,  whereupon 
Here  destroyed  her  children.  Frenzied  by 
this  loss,  she  became  transformed  into  a  cruel 
demon  who  prowled  about  at  night  to  rob 
mothers  of  their  children,  whose  blood  she 


1 2  Introduction 

sucked.  She  ceased  to  be  a  living  woman, 
and  became  a  spectre  of  hideously  distorted 
face,  and  having  also  the  power  of  taking  out 
her  eyes  and  then  replacing  them.  This 
tale  or  series  of  tales  finds  a  gradual  develop- 
ment in  a  second  stage  of  myth  in  which  the 
Lamias  are  spoken  of  in  the  plural,  and  are 
depicted  as  phantoms  in  the  shape  of  women 
of  extraordinary  beauty  who  lure  young  men 
into  their  abodes  in  order  to  drink  their 
blood  and  consume  their  flesh.  These 
Lami^  are  evidently  the  prototypes  of  the 
vampires  of  Slavonic  and  German  folk-lore  ; 
and  they  appear  also  in  Greek  legends  under 
other  names,  such  as  Empusa,  the  spectre 
with  one  brazen  leg  and  the  hoof  of  an  ass, 
and  as  Mormolyce,  another  nursery  bugbear. 
The  Ghost  Story,  as  might  be  expected,  is 
one  that  has  left  its  traces  more  perceptibly 
upon  written  literature.  Ghosts  flit  through 
both  Greek  and  Rome  prose  and  verse, 
appearing  as  early  as  Homer  and  Herodotus. 
In  fact  the  eleventh  book  of  the  Odyssey  is 


Introduction  13 

filled  with  spectral  forms,  so  that  the  Alex- 
andrian commentators  gave  to  it  the  title 
Nekyia  or  "  Invocation  of  Ghosts."  The 
Greek  dramatists  allude  continually  to  the 
appearance  of  departed  spirits,  and  Latin 
literature  is  no  less  permeated  by  the  same 
general  belief.  Attius,  in  a  striking  passage, 
represents  a  ghost  as  rising  from  the  shades 
whence,  as  he  says,  "  Spectres  appear  amid 
dense  gloom,  with  unreal  blood,  mere 
shadows  of  those  who  have  died."  One  of  the 
best  of  the  plays  of  Piautus  gets  its  name 
{Mostellarid)  from  the  ghost  of  a  murdered 
man  that  is  described  in  it  as  haunting  a 
house.  In  the  sixth  book  of  the  Mneid 
many  spirits  pass  in  review  before  ^Eneas. 
Roman  history  also  has  its  legends  of  the 
dead  returning,  such  as  that  of  the  apparition 
which  appeared  at  midnight  to  Brutus  in  his 
tent  and  warned  him  of  his  approaching  death 
at  Philippi,  —  a  story  which  possibly  suggested 
to  Sir  Walter  Scott  the  impressive  episode 
of  the  Bodach  Glas  in  Waverley.     In  Latin 


14  Introduction 

prose,  however,  the  best  specimen  of  the  Ghost 
Story  quite  simple  and  unadorned  is  that 
which  is  given  by  the  Younger  PHny  in  one 
of  his  letters  to  a  friend,  which  contains  all 
the  features  of  the  most  modern  ghost  tale, 
and  has  a  hundred  parallels  in  modern  litera- 
ture, the  closest  perhaps  being  found  in  Wash- 
ington Irving's  story  o^  Dolph  Heyliger. 

All  these  legends,  tales,  myths,  and  records 
of  superstition,  however,  are  the  precursors 
and  accompaniments  of  prose  fiction  rather 
than  a  department  of  it.  They  are,  in  their 
primitive  form,  not  conscious  fiction  at  all, 
being  told  in  good  faith  by  those  who 
implicitly  believed  them ;  nor  did  they 
appear  as  episodes  in  pure  fiction  until 
man  had  become  sophisticated  by  experi- 
ence. But  this  sophistication  is  found  only 
after  fiction  in  its  literary  sense  has  become 
definitely  recognised  as  a  department  of 
letters.  We  must,  therefore,  look  elsewhere 
than  to  the  fireside  tale  of  the  peasant  and 
the  strange   imaginings   of  the    forester   for 


Introduction  15 

the  true  source  of  prose  fiction  in  ancient 
literature. 

Among  tlie  Greeks,  the  oldest  form  of 
literary  production  that  we  have  remaining 
is  the  epic,  and  the  epic  is  in  poetry  the 
representative  of  the  historical  romance  in 
prose.  But  of  course  the  Iliad  and  the 
Odyssey^  so  far  from  giving  us  a  primitive 
type  of  poetry,  in  reality  represent  the  epic 
in  its  last  perfection, —  the  edition  definitive 
of  the  rhapsode's  art,  elaborated  by  centuries 
of  experiment  and  written  in  an  artificial 
language  evolved  from  all  the  dialects  of 
Greece,  and  wrought  into  a  marvel  of  elastic- 
ity, expressiveness,  and  sonorous  power. 
The  Homeric  epic,  as  we  have  it,  is  in 
reality  a  calUda  iunctura^  a  clever  dovetailing 
of  brilliant  episodes.  There  are  the  episodes 
of  Achilles  and  Briseis,  of  Ares  and  Aphro- 
dite, of  Circe  and  Odysseus,  and  a  hundred 
others.  It  is,  in  fact,  in  all  these  episodes, 
rather  than  in  the  epic  as  a  whole,  that  we 
are  to  see  a  suggestion  at  least  of  the  earliest 


1 6  Introduction 

efforts  of  conscious  fiction,  which  began 
where  it  seems  likely  to  end,  in  the  Short 
Story. 

A  still  closer  approach  to  the  archetype 
can  be  found  in  Herodotus,  with  whom  the 
history  of  Greek  prose  begins,  and  who, 
himself  a  born  story-teller,  sprinkles  his 
pages  with  the  anecdotes  that  he  gathered 
in  his  travels.  The  story  of  Candaules,  who 
showed  his  wife  naked  to  the  guardsman 
Gyges,  of  Arion  and  the  Dolphin,  of 
Rhampsinitus  and  the  Robber,  of  Poly- 
crates  and  the  Ring,  and  of  Pheron's  remark- 
able recovery  of  his  sight,  —  these  are  all 
instances  of  the  Short  Story  in  its  early 
form,  extremely  brief,  simply  told,  with  a 
naivete  like  that  of  Mandeville  or  Defoe, 
and  each  embodying  a  single   incident. 

One  cannot  doubt  that  it  was  from  Syria 
and  Persia  that  the  Greeks  received  their 
earliest  models  of  literary  fiction.  It  is  one 
more  debt  to  be  recorded  in  favour  of  the 
East,  the  mysterious  East  which,  if  not  the 


Introduction  17 

cradle  of  the  human  race,  was,  at  any  rate, 
the  birthplace  of  philosophy,  of  history,  of 
poetry,  and  of  art.  All  these  the  Greeks  of 
Europe  owed  to  Asia  through  their  brethren 
of  Asia  Minor,  whose  close  contact  with  the 
purely  Oriental  peoples  proved  at  once  a 
stimulus  and  an  intellectual  inspiration. 
The  East  has  always  been  the  home  of 
story-telling,  and  there  the  art  of  fiction 
first  became  a  distinct  profession. 

That  this  is  true — that  the  suggestion 
when  it  came  to  Greece  came  from  without 
rather  than  from  within  —  is  reasonably  to  be 
inferred  from  the  fact  that  the  earliest  writers 
of  Greek  romances  were  not  Greeks  of 
Greece,  but  of  the  Orient.  Of  the  four 
Xenophons  whose  names  belong  to  the 
history  of  ancient  fiction,  one  was  a  native 
of  Antioch,  one  of  Ephesus,  and  one  of 
Cyprus.  Achilles  Tatius  and  Severus  were 
Alexandrians.  Heliodorus  wrote  at  Emesa 
in  Syria,  Chariton  and  Longus  at  Aphro- 
disias    in    Caria,    Parthenius    at    Nicasa   in 


1 8  Introduction 

Bithynia,  Dio  Chrysostomus  at  Prusias  in 
Bithynia,  Lucian  at  Samosata  in  Syria, 
lamblichus  at  Babylon,  Clearchus  at  Soli. 
Theodorus  Prodromus  was  an  Asiatic,  and 
Eumathius  an  Egyptian.  Hellas  Proper, 
then,  has  scarcely  anything  in  common  with 
her  romancers.  She  lends  to  them  her 
language,  but  most  of  them  belong  to  her 
neither  in  birth,  nor  in  education,  nor  in 
manners. 

Even  more  striking  is  the  internal  evi- 
dence of  the  romances  themselves.  On 
every  page,  in  every  plot,  in  the  whole  spirit 
and  sentiment  of  the  stories,  there  are  unmis- 
takable traces  of  Orientalism.  The  adven- 
tures of  lovers  in  undefined  and  unknown 
countries,  the  surfeit  of  marvels,  the  strange 
and  improbable  happenings,  the  magical 
rites,  the  metamorphoses  of  men  into  beasts, 
—  all  these  savour  of  the  East,  and  claim 
kinship  with  the  Thousand  and  One  Nights 
rather  than  with  the  simpler  and  more  con- 
gruous narratives  of  the  literature  that  we 


Introduction  19 

know  to  be  truly  Greek.  The  style  is 
equally  significant,  being  florid,  highly 
wrought,  and  loaded  with  an  excess  of  orna- 
ment,—  in  short,  bearing  all  the  marks  of 
that  diction  which  the  Greeks  and  Romans 
both  characterised  as  Asiatic,  and  distin- 
guished from  the  more  reserved,  more  terse, 
and  much  more  manly  style  of  Athens  and 
BoEotia.  Asiatic,  too,  is  the  languorous 
movement  and  nervelessness  of  these  curious 
novels.  In  reading  them  one  breathes  an 
atmosphere  heavy  with  attar  of  roses  and  the 
scent  of  pastilles,  an  atmosphere  in  which 
sensuality  thrives  and  virility  expires.  All 
are  as  unlike  the  rapid,  vigorous,  and  bracing 
movement  of  what  the  Greeks  of  Greece 
wrote  down,  as  the  soft  skies  and  perfumed 
air  of  Asia  Minor  are  unlike  the  gray  clouds 
and  driving  snows  of  Thrace,  —  as  Miletus 
is  unlike  Marathon. 

To  the  Oriental  example,  therefore,  must 
be  ascribed  the  first  known  appearance  of 
pure  prose  fiction  in  Greek  literature  in  the 


20  Introduction 

so-called  Milesian  Tales  of  Aristides  and 
others,  famous  in  antiquity  and  the  fore- 
runner of  a  swarm  of  similar  productions  in 
mediaeval  and  modern  times.  The  date  at 
which  they  were  written  is  uncertain,  though 
it  was  unquestionably  previous  to  the  second 
century  b.  c.  ;  nor  is  their  form  now  posi- 
tively known  beyond  the  fact  that  they  were 
in  prose,  and  that  they  were  brief,  witty,  and 
indecent.  The  choice  of  subjects  in  these 
early  novelettes  can  be  seen  by  examining  the 
existing  collection  of  Parthenius  of  Nicaea, 
who,  though  a  Greek,  lived  at  Rome  in  the 
first  century  b.  c,  where  he  taught  his 
native  language.  Among  his  pupils  was 
the  poet  Vergil,  and  the  poem  entitled  More- 
turn,  which  is  often  ascribed  to  Vergil,  is  a 
translation  into  Latin  of  a  Greek  original 
by  Parthenius,  as  may  be  also  the  pseudo- 
Vergilian  poem  entitled  Ciris.  Parthenius, 
in  fact,  was  very  popular  among  the  educated 
Romans,  so  much  so  that  in  the  following 
century  the  Emperor  Tiberius  set  up  his  bust 


Introduction  21 

in  the  imperial  library,  and  himself  con- 
descended to  write  imitations  of  his  verse. 
From  Parthenius  there  has  come  down  to  us 
a  curious  little  book  with  the  title  Erotic 
Experiences,  dedicated  by  the  author  to  the 
Latin  man  of  letters,  Cornelius  Gallus,  well 
known  as  the  friend  of  Vergil,  who  has 
handed  down  to  us  in  his  Tenth  Eclogue  the 
memory  of  an  unfortunate  love-affair  of 
Gallus.  The  Erotic  Experiences  is  a  collec- 
tion in  prose  of  thirty-six  skeleton  stories,  or 
hints  for  stories,  gathered  by  Parthenius  from 
various  sources,  and  offered  to  Gallus  as 
suggestions  for  poetical  treatment  by  him. 
They  are  extremely  brief,  mere  sketches, 
often  containing  little  more  than  a  hint,  and 
may  be  compared  with  the  fragmentary 
suggestions  and  hastily  gathered  impressions 
which  Southey  and  Dickens  also,  made  with 
the  purpose  of  developing  them  at  some 
future  time.  The  chief  interest  of  the  col- 
lection of  Parthenius  lies  in  the  fact  that  the 
plots  given   by   him    are    all  derived    from 


2  2  Introduction 

earlier  writers,  whose  names  he,  in  nearly 
every  instance,  has  prefixed  to  his  synopsis  ; 
and  in  the  insight  that  we  thus  have  given 
to  us  of  the  subjects  usually  chosen  by  the 
writers  of  the  Milesian  Tales.  Many  are 
taken  from  the  mythologists,  and  a  cer- 
tain number  of  them  are  studies  in  the 
abnormal  manifestations  of  sexual  love, 
reminding  one  in  a  way  of  the  imaginings 
of  Catulle  Mendes. 

To  show  how  bald  and  bare  these  outUne 
stories  are,  the  literal  translation  of  a  single 
one  is  here  given.  It  was  drawn  by  Parthe- 
nius  from  Philetas,  and  is  entitled  Polymela. 

''  Odysseus,  in  his  wanderings  about  Sicily  and 
thf;  Tyrrhenian  and  Sicilian  Seas,  came  to  the 
court  of  iEolus  in  the  island  of  Meligunis.  i^olus, 
out  of  respect  to  his  guest's  reputation  for  wisdom, 
made  much  of  him,  questioning  him  about  the 
downfall  of  Troy  and  how,  on  the  return  of  the 
Greeks  from  Troy,  their  ships  had  been  scattered. 
In  fact,  in  his  hospitable  spirit,  he  detained  him  for 
a  long  time,  and  Odysseus  found  his  stay  extremely 
pleasant ;  since  Polymela,  a  daughter  of  iEolus,  hav- 


Introduction  23 

ing  fallen  in  love  with  him  carried  on  with  him  a 
secret  amour.  When,  however,  Odysseus,  having 
found  a  favourable  breeze,  sailed  away,  the  girl  was 
caught  weeping  bitterly  over  some  Trojan  keep- 
sakes, and  thus  exposed  her  secret.  Then  .^olus 
cursed  the  absent  Odysseus,  and  cast  about  for 
some  way  to  punish  Polymela.  As  his  brother 
Diores  had  fallen  in  love  with  her  and  asked  for 
her  in  marriage,  the  father  was  persuaded  to  give 
Polymela  to  him  as  his  bride." 

This  is  bare  enough  in  all  conscience,  yet 
one  can  readily  discern  how  effectively  the 
hints  here  given  could  be  worked  up  by  a 
sympathetic  imagination,  and  how  readily 
the  salient  points  are  to  be  seen,  —  the  subtle 
Odysseus  coming  with  all  the  prestige  of 
novelty  to  the  simple  island  girl,  a  second 
Princess  of  Thule,  and  with  all  the  romance 
of  his  Trojan  exploits  about  him ;  his  easy 
conquest  of  the  trustful  ignorance  of 
Polymela ;  his  careless  departure ;  the  ex- 
posure of  her  secret  in  a  burst  of  grief;  the 
anger  of  the  father ;  the  necessity  for  a  hasty 
marriage    after   the   fashion    of  Viviette   in 


24  Introduction 

Hardy's  '■Two  on  a  Tower ;  the  unsuspecting 
ardour  of  Diores ;  the  bride  carrying  her 
guilty  secret  to  her  new  home,  —  it  is  all 
excellent  material,  and  abounds  in  very 
strong  situations. 

Parthenius  gives  us  only  the  faintest  clue  to 
the  nature  of  the  subjects  dealt  with  in  the 
Milesian  Tales.  If  we  wish  to  get  a  good 
notion  of  the  general  manner  of  treatment 
employed  by  their  writers,  no  better  illus- 
tration can  be  found  than  the  extremely 
famous  "  Story  of  the  Ephesian  Matron," 
which  is  told  by  one  of  the  characters  in  the 
novel  of  Petronius.  No  anecdote  of  the  kind 
has  ever  had  so  great  a  vogue  as  this,  whose 
antiquity  and  universality  are  remarkable, 
and  which  has  been  handed  down  and  imi- 
tated for  century  after  century.  Huet  says 
that  it  exists  in  the  oldest  Chinese  literature ; 
it  was  certainly  very  popular  in  classical 
times.  After  Petronius,  Apuleius  para- 
phrased it  in  his  Golden  Ass,  though  at  the 
expense    of   the    piquant    crispness    of   the 


Introduction  25 

Petronian  version.  It  was  the  first  part  of 
Petronius  to  be  made  known  in  the  Middle 
Ages,  being  translated  into  Old  French  by 
the  priest  Hebert  about  the  year  1200.  It 
forms  the  basis  of  one  of  the  fabliaux  entitled 
La  Femme  ^i  se  Fist  Putain  sur  la  Fosse  de 
son  Mart.  It  is  cited  by  John  of  Salisbury. 
La  Fontaine  has  expanded  it  into  one  of  his 
most  successful  poems,  eliminating  the 
gruesome  features  of  the  original.  Voltaire 
has  made  it  the  basis  of  his  celebrated  story 
Zadig.  It  is  even  quoted  by  so  grave  a 
divine  as  Jeremy  Taylor  in  his  Rule  and 
Exercise  of  Holy  Dyings  where  it  forms,  incon- 
gruously enough,  a  part  of  the  fifth  chapter 
on  the  proper  way  of  treating  the  dead.  As 
this  story  is  not  contained  in  the  portion  of 
Petronius  translated  in  the  present  volume, 
it  may  be  given  here  by  way  of  illustration. 

"  There  lived  at  Ephesus  a  certain  lady  in  such 
high  repute  for  her  chastity,  that  women,  even 
those  of  the  neighbouring  countries,  used  to  come 
to  see  her  as  a  miracle.     When  her  husband  was 


26  Introduction 

carried  to  the  grave,  she  was  not  content  to  follow 
the  corpse,  after  the  usual  custom,  with  dishevelled 
hair,  and  beating  her  bosom  in  presence  of  all 
beholders ;  but  accompanied  the  dear  departed  even 
to  his  last  home  ;  and  when  his  body  had  been 
laid  in  the  sepulchre  in  the  Greek  manner,  she 
made  herself  its  guardian,  and  wept  over  it  both 
night  and  day.  While  she  was  thus  afflicting  her- 
self, and  threatening  her  own  death  by  starvation, 
neither  her  parents  nor  her  relations  could  dissuade 
her  from  her  purpose ;  even  the  magistrates  failed 
in  the  same  attempt ;  and  all  Ephesus  bewailed 
this  exemplary  and  incomparable  woman,  who  was 
now  dragging  through  the  fifth  day  without  tasting 
food. 

"  A  faithful  maid  sat  with  the  sorrowing  woman, 
mingled  her  tears  with  those  of  her  mistress,  and, 
when  occasion  required,  trimmed  a  lamp  that  was 
burning  in  the  tomb.  Nothing  else  was  talked  of 
throughout  the  city,  and  all  men  declared  that  never 
had  there  before  been  seen  so  shining  an  example 
of  chastity  and  affection. 

"  It  happened  just  then,  that  the  governor  of  the 
province  had  ordered  certain  robbers  to  be  crucified 
near  the  dismal  vault  where  the  lady  was  weeping 
over  her  newly-buried  husband.  On  the  following 
night,  the  sentinel  who  watched  the  crosses  lest 


Introduction  27 

the  bodies  should  be  stolen  for  burial,  seeing  a  light 
glimmering  among  the  tombs,  and  hearing  the 
moans  of  some  one  in  sorrow,  was  led  by  the 
curiosity  common  to  all  mankind  to  discover  who 
or  what  it  might  be.  He  descended,  therefore,  into 
the  tomb,  where  seeing  a  very  beautiful  woman,  he 
stood  amazed  at  first  as  though  he  had  beheld  some 
unearthly  apparition ;  but  presently  observing  the 
corpse,  the  lady's  tears,  and  her  face  torn  by  her 
nails,  he  rightly  concluded  that  she  could  not 
support  the  yearning  sense  of  her  recent  loss. 
Upon  this  he  went  back,  carried  his  humble  meal 
into  the  tomb,  and  began  to  implore  her  to  desist 
from  superfluous  sorrow  and  from  rending  her 
bosom  with  unavailing  sobs ;  telling  her  that  death 
was  a  necessary  end,  that  the  grave  was  the  home 
of  all,  and  repeating  all  the  arguments  that  are 
usually  employed  to  soothe  an  anguished  soul. 
But  she,  shocked  by  such  unlooked-for  attempts  to 
console  her,  began  to  beat  her  breast  with  redoubled 
violence,  to  tear  her  hair,  and  to  strew  it  over  the 
dead  body. 

"  The  soldier,  however,  did  not  desist,  but  with 
the  same  prayers  endeavoured  to  prevail  on  her  to 
take  some  nourishment,  till  at  last  the  servant, 
seduced,  no  doubt,  by  the  odour  of  the  wine,  con- 
fessed her  defeat  by  holding  out  her  hand  to  the 


2  8  Introduction 

charitable  consoler,  and,  after  refreshing  herself 
with  food  and  drink,  began  herself  to  combat  the 
obstinacy  of  her  mistress.  '  What  possible  good 
will  it  do  you,'  she  said,  '  to  starve  yourself  in  this 
way,  to  bury  yourself  alive,  and  to  draw  your  last 
breath  before  the  Fates  demand  it  ?  Do  you  think 
that  such  things  give  pleasure  to  the  dead  ?  Will 
you  not  cast  off  this  whim  of  our  sex,  and  enjoy 
the  good  things  of  this  world  while  you  can  ?  The 
very  corpse  that  lies  before  you  ought  to  warn  you 
to  make  the  most  of  life.' 

"  No  one  ever  listens  reluctantly  when  he  is 
pressed  to  take  food  or  to  live.  The  lady,  ex- 
hausted by  an  abstinence  of  several  days,  suffered 
her  obstinacy  to  be  overcome,  and  satisfied  her 
hunger  with  no  less  eagerness  than  the  maid  who 
had  been  the  first  to  yield.  We  all  know  to  what 
temptations  mortal  flesh  is  exposed  after  a  hearty 
meal.  The  very  same  arguments  which  the 
soldier  had  used  to  combat  her  despair  he  now 
employed  against  her  chastity.  The  young  man, 
thought  this  virtuous  lady,  is  neither  ill-looking 
nor  lacking  in  address  ;  and  the  maid  also  spoke 
in  his  behalf. 

"  In  a  word,  the  lady  observed  the  same  absti- 
nence in  this  respect  as  in  the  other,  and  the 
gallant  soldier  was  a  second  time  successful   in  his 


Introduction  29 

persuasions.  They  passed  not  only  that  first 
evening  together,  but  the  next  night  also  and  the 
next  night  after  that,  the  doors  of  the  tomb  being 
of  course  carefully  closed,  so  that  if  any  one,  friend 
or  stranger,  should  come  thither,  he  would  conclude 
that  this  most  virtuous  of  wives  had  died  over  the 
body  of  her  husband.  Meanwhile  the  soldier, 
delighted  with  the  beauty  of  his  mistress  and  with 
the  mystery  of  the  intrigue,  bought  for  her  all  the 
good  things  his  means  could  procure,  and,  as  soon 
as  night  came,  carried  them  into  the  tomb. 

"  In  the  mean  time,  the  relatives  of  one  of  the 
malefactors,  observing  the  carelessness  of  the  guard, 
carried  off  the  body  during  the  night  and  buried  it. 
On  the  next  day,  when  the  circumvented  soldier 
saw  one  of  the  crosses  without  a  body,  he  was  dis- 
mayed at  the  consequences  to  himself;  telling  her 
that  he  would  not  await  the  sentence  of  the  judge, 
but  that  his  own  sword  should  punish  his  negli- 
gence, would  she  only  afford  him  sepulture,  and 
join  the  lover  to  the  husband  in  that  fatal  place. 

" '  Nay,'  replied  the  no  less  compassionate  than 
chaste  matron,  '  the  gods  forbid  that  I  should  have 
before  my  eyes  at  the  same  time  the  dead  bodies 
of  the  two  men  who  were  most  dear  to  me  !  I 
will  rather  hang  up  the  dead  than  be  the  death  of 
the  living.'     And  in  accordance  with  these  senti- 


30  Introduction 

ments,  she  ordered  the  corpse  of  her  husband  to 
be  taken  out  of  its  coffin  and  affixed  to  the  vacant 
cross.  The  soldier  availed  himself  of  the  expe- 
dient suggested  by  the  ingenious  lady  ;  and  the  next 
day  every  one  wondered  how^  it  was  that  the  dead 
man  had  found  his  way  to  the  cross  ! " 

In  emulation  of  Aristides  and  his  school, 
there  sprang  up  a  host  of  story-writers  who 
gave  to  their  collections  the  titles  Ephesian, 
Babylonian,  Cyprian,  Egyptian,  Sybaritic, 
Naxian,  Pallenian,  Lydian,  Trojan,  and 
Bithynian  Tales,  many  of  the  writers  of 
which  are  among  those  quoted  by  Parthe- 
nius.  These  stories  do  not  seem  to  have 
differed,  except  in  name,  from  those  of 
Miletus ;  and  they  find  their  descendants 
and  literary  parallels  in  such  products  of 
pornographic  ingenuity  as  the  Cent  Nouvelles 
Nouvelles  of  Louis  XI.  of  France  and  the 
Contes  Drolatiques  of  Honore  de  Balzac. 
The  same  themes  were  repeated  again  and 
again  with  an  infinity  of  variations  in  detail 
which  did  not,  however,  preserve  them  from 


Introduction  31 

becoming  monotonous  when  read  consecu- 
tively ;  and  if  one  continues  his  study  of 
them  it  is  rather  because  of  their  socio- 
logical interest,  as  giving  a  realistic  picture 
of  the  morals  and  manners  of  the  Asiatic 
Greeks,  than  for  their  literary  value.  Their 
subjects  had  a  very  limited  range.  There 
appeared  over  and  over  again  the  mistress 
who  exploits  her  lover,  the  lover  who  cheats 
his  mistress,  husbands  who  sell  the  favours 
of  their  wives,  fathers  who  abandon  their 
children,  —  slaves,  parasites,  jockeys,  actors, 
—  a  kaleidoscopic  whirl  of  sensual  life  and 
sordid  cynicism,  indicative  of  the  decay  of 
the  sterner  virtues  of  the  older  Greeks,  who, 
though  they  worshipped  beauty,  coupled  it 
always  in  their  thoughts  with  strength  and 
vigour.  Yet  it  need  not  be  supposed  that 
the  pictures  given  in  the  Milesian  Tales 
were  so  sweepingly  indicative  of  wholesale 
corruption  as  might  at  first  appear  to  be  the 
case.  The  Greeks,  even  to  the  last,  kept 
their  home  life  as  a  thing  apart, — a  thing  not 


3  2  Introduction 

only  secluded  from  the  world  at  large,  but 
also,  to  a  great  extent,  from  the  pages  of 
literature.  Behind  the  veiled  doors  of  the 
gynaceum  the  painter  of  contemporary  char- 
acter did  not  venture  to  intrude  ;  and  pub- 
lic sentiment  would  not  have  tolerated  these 
scandalous  stories  if  told  about  the  homes 
and  households  of  the  free  Greeks.  Hence 
it  is  that  the  bedraggled  heroes  and  heroines 
of  the  Milesian  Tales  were  either  mythical 
personages  of  legend  and  story,  or  else  for- 
eigners, slave  girls  and  courtesans,  freedmen 
and  freedwomen,  or  individuals  of  still 
humbler  station.  The  public  for  whom  the 
tales  were  written  was  also  a  very  special 
public,  —  a  public  such  as  that  for  which 
Maupassant  and  Mendes  have  written  in 
our  own  time,  —  a  public  of  libertines  and 
kept-women,  whose  jaded  senses  found  a 
stimulus  only  in  the  most  subtle  refinements 
of  depravity. 

In  the  third  and   fourth   centuries    b.  c. 
Greece  came  into    definite    and  permanent 


Introduction  33 

contact  with  a  larger  world  than  it  had  re- 
cognised before.  The  wars  with  Persia  led 
men  to  shake  off  something  of  the  old  Hel- 
lenic exclusiveness'  which  had  made  them 
so  self-centred  and  so  indifferent  to  ex- 
traneous influence.  The  brilliant  victories 
at  Marathon  and  Salamis  and  Plataea,  and, 
later,  the  conquering  march  of  Alexander  the 
Great  stirred  all  imaginations.  Like  Rome 
in  the  time  of  the  Punic  Wars,  and  like 
England  in  the  days  of  Elizabeth,  Greece 
tasted  of  the  inspiration  that  comes  from 
battle  and  foreign  conquest ;  and  this  new 
spirit  in  Greece,  as  in  Rome  and  in  England, 
finds  a  distinct  reflection  in  its  later  litera- 
ture. There  was  something  in  the  air  that 
stirred  men's  minds,  a  growing  fondness  for 
adventure,  for  exploration,  for  discovery,  and 
hence  we  find  the  development  at  this  time 
of  a  new  tendency  in  the  history  of  prose 
fiction,  which  now  begins  to  witness  the 
evolution  of  the  historical  romance  and  the 
novel  of  adventure.     Instances  of  the  former 

3 


34  Introduction 

are  to  be  seen  in  the  Atlantis  of  Plato  and 
the  Cyropadia  of  Xenophon  which  served  as 
models  in  modern  times  for  the  Utopia  of 
Sir  Thomas  More  and  the  New  Atlantis  of 
Francis  Bacon.  In  the  Cyropadia  we  find 
the  first  romantic  love-story  that  can  be  dis- 
covered in  the  existing  remains  of  Greek 
literature  ;  yet  these  works  of  Plato  and  of 
Xenophon  are  chiefly  political  in  their  in- 
terest and  have  little  place  in  any  purely 
literary  category. 

The  romance  of  adventure  finds  an  illus- 
tration in  the  novel  written  by  one  Antonius 
Diogenes  and  entitled  The  Marvels  beyond 
Thule.  It  tells  of  the  adventures  of  a  young 
Arcadian,  Dinias,  whose  love  for  a  Tyrian 
girl,  Dercyllis,  furnishes  a  slender  plot  upon 
which  are  strung  together  a  series  of  short 
stories  or  episodes  which  have  little  connec- 
tion with  each  other,  but  which  afford  the 
author  an  opportunity  to  display  his  lively 
imagination  and  his  mastery  of  the  im- 
probable;  for   the  book  is    filled  with  the 


Introduction  35 

most  extravagant  incidents,  one  of  which,  a 
journey  to  the  moon,  recalls  the  somewhat 
similar  fancy  embodied  in  the  popular  story 
written  by  Jules  Verne.  More  homoge- 
neous and  less  wildly  improbable  are  the 
later  romances  by  Lucius  of  Patrae,  of  un- 
certain date,  called  Metamorphoses ;  by  lam- 
blichus,  a  Syrian  who  wrote  the  story  called 
Babylonicdj  which  has  to  do  with  the  adven- 
tures of  a  married  couple,  Sinonis  and  Rho- 
danes,  and  contains  a  double  plot;  and  by 
Xenophon  of  Ephesus,  whose  novel  Ephes- 
iaca  is  the  ultimate  source  of  Romeo  and 
Juliet.  Most  famous,  however,  of  all  the 
novels  of  this  class  is  the  Mthiopica  written 
by  Heliodorus,  the  Christian  bishop  of 
Emesa  in  the  fourth  century  a.  d.  This  is 
usually  considered  the  very  best  novel  of 
adventure  produced  by  the  ancient  Greeks. 
It  is  in  ten  books,  and  relates  the  adventures 
of  two  lovers,  Theagenes  and  Chariclea.  It 
has  some  merit  because  of  its  regular  con- 
struction, and  several  of   its    episodes    are, 


36  Introduction 

when  read  apart  from  the  context,  of  con- 
siderable interest ;  while  at  the  very  outset 
of  the  book  there  is  one  rather  curious 
passage  which  has  to  do  with  the  influence 
of  pre-natal  conditions  upon  the  unborn 
child.  This  novel  was  very  popular  in  its 
own  time,  and  on  the  revival  of  classical 
learning  at  the  end  of  the  Middle  Ages  it 
came  once  more  into  vogue,  so  that  it  is  said 
to  have  been  the  favourite  reading  of  the 
French  dramatist,  Racine.  All  these  stories, 
however,  taken  as  a  whole,  are  greatly  lack- 
ing in  intrinsic  worth.  They  show  abso- 
lutely no  conception  of  character-drawing, 
the  personages  introduced  are  mere  dummies, 
and  the  incidents  themselves  are  of  a  baldly 
conventional  type,  giving  us  an  endless 
round  of  captures  and  escapes,  of  adventures 
with  robbers  and  pirates,  and  of  battles  and 
single  combats,  until  one  wearies  of  the 
poverty  of  invention  which  the  writers 
manifest. 

More  purely  romantic  are  the  story  by 


Introduction  37 

Achilles  Tatius  of  Alexandria,  entitled  'The 
Loves  of  Leucippe  and  Clitophon,  the  Choreas 
and  Callirrhoe,  by  Chariton  of  Aphrodisias, 
and  the  novelette  called  Apollonius  Tyrius,  of 
which  the  author  is  unknown  and  the  Greek 
original  lost.  It  survives,  however,  in  a 
Latin  version  which  was  much  read  during 
the  Middle  Ages  and  suggested  a  portion  of 
Gower's  Confessio  Amantis  and  perhaps  the 
Shakespearian  play  Pericles^  Prince  of  "Tyre. 
Some  of  the  incidents  recorded  in  it  give  us 
curious  pictures  of  low  life,  and  thus  possess 
a  genuine  sociological  interest.  Much  later 
in  date  and  distinctly  inferior  in  every  way 
are  two  Greek  novels,  one  by  Theodorus 
Prodromus  of  Constantinople,  and  the  other 
an  imitation  of  this  by  Nicetas  Eugenianus, 
both  of  them  written  in  doggerel  verse. 
Last  of  all,  is  the  story  which  relates  the 
adventures  of  Hysmine  and  Hysminias, 
which  some  have  regarded  as  being  the  origi- 
nal source  of  the  story  of  Don  Juan. 

The  novel  of  character,  or  perhaps   one 


38  Introduction 

might  better  say  the  subjective  novel,  has 
few  representatives  in  the  history  of  Greek 
fiction.  It  is  found,  however,  in  the  work 
of  Alciphron,  a  Greek  sophist  who  flourished 
in  the  second  century  a.  d.  From  him 
we  have  left  one  hundred  and  eighteen 
imaginary  epistles,  which  give  us  most  val- 
uable pictures  of  Bohemian  life  at  Athens. 
They  are  among  the  very  best  things  that 
can  be  found  in  the  history  of  later  Greek 
literature,  being  extremely  vivacious  and 
entertaining,  and  showing  a  very  real  mas- 
tery and  understanding  of  character.  The 
glimpses  which  they  afford  of  both  middle- 
class  life  and  of  the  artistic  world  are  so  good 
as  to  make  it  remarkable  that  they  have 
never  yet  been  translated  into  English.  To 
the  same  class  of  writings  belong  two  books 
of  erotic  letters  by  Aristasnetus,  composed  in 
a  cynical  spirit  that  suggests  some  of  the 
touches  to  be  found  in  the  Lettres  de  Femmes 
of  Marcel  Prevost.  By  Theophilus  of 
Simocatta,    who   flourished    in    the  seventh 


Introduction  39 

century  a.  d.,  are  eighty-five  epistles  that 
have  some  epigrammatic  merit,  but  are  of 
little  value  as  literature. 

The  novel  of  pastoral  life  is  represented 
in  Greek  by  the  very  famous  romance  called 
Daphnis  and  Chloe  which  is  one  of  the  most 
original  and  interesting  stories  In  ancient 
literature.  It  is  usually  ascribed  to  one 
Longus,  though  this  is  probably  not  the 
author's  name,  and  its  theme  Is  the  uncon- 
scious growth  of  the  sexual  Instinct  In  a 
boy  and  a  girl  who  have  been  brought  up 
together  from  their  earliest  Infancy  In  a  state 
of  perfect  innocence.  The  working  out  of 
this  motive  gives  to  the  book  a  very  unique 
and  unusual  character,  and  It  has  also  a 
certain  mastery  of  description  as  applied  to 
natural  scenery,  that  Is  sometimes  both  beau- 
tiful and  striking,  In  that  the  author  seems 
to  recognise  a  sort  of  subtle  relation  between 
the  external  environment  of  man  and  the 
incidents  of  his  life  ;  and  this  Is  occasionally 
developed  in  a  manner  that  suggests  one  of 


40  Introduction 

the  theories  everywhere  to  be  found  illus- 
trated in  the  novels  of  Emile  Zola.  The 
book  has  been  frequently  translated  into  most 
of  the  modern  languages,  and  has  been  obvi- 
ously imitated  in  Bernardin  de  St.  Pierre's 
Paul  ei  VirginiCy  by  Allan  Ramsay  in  his 
Gentle  Shepherd^  and  by  many  other  less 
known  modern  writers. 

Roman  fiction,  like  nearly  all  of  Roman 
literature,  sprang  directly  from  an  imitation 
of  the  Greek,  and  came  into  existence  during 
the  first  century  b.  c,  when  a  number  of 
the  literary  men  at  Rome  began  writing 
short  stories  after  the  fashion  of  the  Milesian 
Tales.  The  best  known  of  these  imitators 
was  Sisenna,  whose  writings,  however,  have 
not  been  preserved,  nor  have  we  any  other 
specimens  of  the  Short  Story  as  composed 
in  Latin  at  this  period.  There  are,  indeed, 
still  surviving  only  two  examples  of  gen- 
uine prose  fiction  written  in  the  Latin  lan- 
guage, which  can  be  ascribed  to  the  classical 
and   semi-classical    periods.     These  are  the 


Introduction  41 

Satira  of  Petronius  Arbiter,  and  the  Meta- 
morphoses (sometimes  called  the  l^he  Golden 
Ass)  of  Apuleius.  They  are,  however,  far 
superior  to  anything  of  the  kind  preserved 
to  us  in  Greek.  The  Satira,  though  incom- 
plete, is  in  its  way  one  of  the  greatest  novels 
of  all  time,  and  is  remarkable  for  its  modern 
tone,  its  unsparing  realism,  its  subtle  touches 
of  character,  its  wit,  and  its  vivid  pictures  of 
life  in  the  Roman  provincial  towns,  no  less 
than  for  the  point  and  elegance  of  its  style. 
The  novel  of  Apuleius,  which  is  in  eleven 
books,  was  drawn  by  its  author  from  the 
Metamorphoses  of  Lucius  of  Patrse  already 
mentioned,  and  perhaps  from  a  similar  story 
narrated  by  Lucian,  who  was  a  contemporary 
of  Apuleius.  The  Metamorphoses  is  a  rather 
remarkable  book.  It  tells  the  story  of  one 
Lucius  who  accidentally  swallowed  a  magic 
potion  which  turned  him  into  an  ass,  in 
which  shape  he  passed  through  a  series  of 
curious  and  amusing  adventures  until  he 
finally    regained    his     natural     form.     The 


42  Introduction 

author  of  this  book  was  an  African ; 
his  imagination  was  deeply  coloured  by 
Oriental  influences  ;  and  it  is  probably  from 
Oriental  sources  that  he  has  drawn  the 
charming  story  of  Cupid  and  Psyche,  which 
forms  an  episode  of  the  Third  Book,  and 
which  has  inspired,  both  in  ancient  and  in 
modern  times,  innumerable  works  of  art. 
Other  episodes  of  this  novel  are  interesting 
in  a  different  way,  the  most  striking  of 
all  being  perhaps  the  tale  introduced  in  the 
first  part  of  the  novel  as  told  by  a  com- 
mercial traveller,  and  blending  in  a  remark- 
able fashion  the  elements  of  the  horrible, 
the  grotesque,  and  the  supernatural.  The 
novel,  indeed,  is  marked  throughout  by 
great  ingenuity  and  conspicuous  cleverness, 
though  some  of  its  incidents  are  gross  and 
shameful  beyond  belief. 

After  the  fall  of  Rome  and  during  the 
Dark  Ages,  when  all  accurate  knowledge  of 
ancient  literature  and  history,  as  well  as  the 
entire  classical  tradition,  were  lost  to  West- 


Introduction  43 

ern  Europe,  there  still  existed  in  men's  minds 
some  faint  and  shadowy  recollection  of  them. 
These,  in  the  course  of  time,  became  blended 
with  the  popular  tales  of  the  Teutonic  peoples, 
until  at  last  they  took  on  a  definite  form 
in  the  celebrated  collection  of  stories  known 
as  the  Gesta  Romanorum^  —  a  perfect  mirage 
of  odds  and  ends  drawn  partly  from  the  classic 
past,  and  partly  from  Northern  traditions, 
so  that  they  jumble  together  the  characters  of 
antiquity  in  the  most  extraordinary  fashion, 
without  any  sense  whatever  of  chronological 
and  historical  accuracy,  making  Vergil, 
Homer,  Alexander  the  Great,  the  Roman 
Caesars,  Romulus,  Remus,  and  the  personages 
of  ancient  mythology  appear  and  reappear 
side  by  side  with  the  knights  and  wizards 
and  dragons  of  mediaeval  legend.  These 
tales  were  immensely  popular,  and  circulated 
all  over  Europe,  being  used  by  the  clergy  to 
illustrate  and  give  point  to  their  sermons ; 
and  in  this  way  they  have  a  certain  value  in 
general    literary  history,  since  they  form  a 


44  Introduction 

connecting  link  between  the  fiction  of  Greece 
and  Rome  and  the  fiction  of  modern  times, 
which,  for  a  century  or  two  after  its  inception, 
drew  very  largely  on  these  monkish  stories 
for  its  themes. 


II 

THE   NOVEL   OF   PETRONIUS 

THE  author  of  the  Satira  is  usually 
identified  with  the  Gaius  Petronius 
who  is  mentioned  by  Tacitus  in  his  Annals  re- 
lating to  the  year  dG  a.  d.  In  this  passage, 
after  mentioning  the  death  of  one  Petronius, 
Tacitus  goes  on  to  say  that  he  was  a  man  of 
pleasure  who  turned  night  into  day  and  who 
became  as  famous  for  his  indolence  as  other 
men  for  their  activity.  Yet  he  was  not  a 
vulgar  debauchee,  but  a  man  of  culture  and 
refined  luxury,  the  very  absence  of  restraint 
in  his  language  and  life  adding  to  his  popu- 
larity by  giving  him  a  character  for  frank- 
ness. Though  naturally  indolent,  he  was  at 
the  same  time  a  man  of  capacity,  since  when 
proconsul  of  Bithynia,  and  afterward  when 
consul,  he  proved  himself  to  be  a  person 
of  much    administrative  ability ;    yet  when 


46  Introduction 

released  from  those  duties  he  went  back  to 
his  life  of  dissipation  among  the  most  inti- 
mate circle  of  Nero's  friends,  and  became  to 
the  emperor  his  maitre  de  plaisirs  {elegan- 
tiarum  arbiter)^  —  an  earlier  Beau  Brummell 
to  an  earlier  George  the  Fourth.  This  pref- 
erence having  roused  the  jealousy  of  Tigelli- 
nus,  this  former  favourite  worked  upon  a 
vein  of  cruelty  in  the  emperor's  nature,  —  a 
passion  even  stronger  with  him  than  his  love 
of  pleasure,  —  charged  Petronius  with  being 
a  friend  of  the  traitor  Scsevinus,  suborned  a 
slave  to  testify  against  him,  and  contrived  to 
prevent  him  from  being  present  to  defend 
himself.  Petronius  was  journeying  from 
Rome  to  Cumae  in  Nero's  own  retinue  when 
he  was  arrested.  He  did  not  wait  for  a 
formal  condemnation,  dreading  the  suspense, 
but  took  his  own  life  by  opening  his  veins  ; 
yet  not  instantaneously,  for  he  caused  his 
veins  to  be  bound  up,  and  again  reopened, 
so  that  he  died  by  inches,  conversing  mean- 
while and  jesting  with  the  friends  who  were 


Introduction  47 

with  him,  and  listening  to  loose  songs  and 
verses,  rewarding  some  of  his  slaves  and 
punishing  others,  taking  part  in  banquets, 
enjoying  naps,  —  all  this,  so  that  to  the 
world  at  large  his  death  might  appear  to 
have  been  accidental.  He  did  not  in  his 
will,  like  most  men  who  died  at  the 
command  of  the  emperor,  flatter  Nero  or 
his  favourite  Tigellinus ;  but,  in  place  of 
the  usual  complimentary  codicil,  set  forth 
the  hideous  vices  of  the  emperor  under  the 
names  of  lewd  men  and  women,  describing 
in  blunt  language  the  monstrosity  of  their 
strange  and  unnatural  excesses ;  and  this 
exposure  he  sent  to  Nero  himself.  He  then 
broke  his  seal-ring,  lest  it  should  serve  to 
bring  others  into  danger.  Nero,  in  trying  to 
discover  how  the  secrets  of  his  debauches 
could  have  become  known,  remembered  one 
Silia,  a  woman  of  some  social  position,  the 
wife  of  a  senator,  and  herself  at  once  a  par- 
taker of  the  emperor's  shameful  secrets  and 
an  intimate  of  Petronius.     Nero,  therefore. 


48  Introduction 

fixed  upon  her  as  the  guilty  person,  and 
executed  her  for  revealing  the  secrets  of 
which  she  had  become  cognisant. 

The  identification  of  this  Petronius  with 
the  author  of  the  Satira  has  been  almost 
universally  accepted,  and  it  seems  to  us  for 
excellent  reasons.  In  the  first  place,  the 
Satira  was  surely  written  in  that  part  of  the 
first  century  in  which  Petronius  lived,  as  is 
established  by  the  language  of  the  book  and 
by  the  allusions  which  it  contains ;  in  the 
second  place,  the  novel  is  precisely  such  a 
work  as  a  man  of  the  character  described  by 
Tacitus,  brilliant,  cultivated,  cynical,  and 
familiar  with  every  kind  of  life,  would  be 
admirably  fitted  to  write ;  and  in  the  third 
place,  there  is  absolutely  no  evidence  that 
can  discredit  the  identification.  It  is  inter- 
esting, also,  to  remember  that  the  name 
*'  Arbiter,"  which  is  applied  to  Petronius  by 
Tacitus,  is  also  applied  to  the  author  of  the 
Satira  by  one  of  the  Roman  grammarians  as 
early  as  the  end  of  the  first  century. 


Introduction  49 

Some  scholars  have  tried  to  discover  in 
the  Satira  the  libellous  book  which  Petronius 
at  his  death  sent  to  Nero,  and  they  have 
therefore  regarded  this  work,  as  being  a  dia- 
tribe against  Nero  and  his  court.  This 
theory,  however,  which  is  usually  called  the 
Neronian  Hypothesis,  has  little  or  nothing 
in  its  favour  when  examined  in  the  light  of 
reason  and  common  sense  ;  for  it  is  unlikely 
that  so  extensive  a  work  (It  originally  ex- 
tended through  at  least  sixteen  books)  could 
have  been  written  in  the  interval  between  the 
arrest  of  Petronius  and  his  death  ;  or  that 
Nero  would  have  permitted  the  continued 
existence  of  the  book  ;  and  there  is  so  much 
in  the  book  itself  that  cannot  possibly  relate 
to  the  emperor  and  his  friends  as  to  render 
the  hypothesis  absolutely  untenable. 

The  Satira  is,  properly  speaking,  neither  a 
romance  nor  a  satire.  So  far  as  it  is  a 
romance  this  character  is  only  a  pretext, 
a  skeleton  whose  frame  the  author  has 
clothed  with  a  great  diversity  of  material,  — 
4 


50  Introduction 

serious  discussions,  moral  teachings,  scenes 
of  refined  pleasure,  beautiful  thoughts, 
sentiments  of  the  most  revolting  cynicism, 
amusing  descriptions,  biting  criticisms,  enter- 
taining anecdotes,  and  even  one  epic  frag- 
ment. This  variety  of  subject  is  wedded  to 
an  equal  variety  of  style  which  is  chameleon- 
like in  its  rapid  changes,  and  which  shifts 
with  perfect  ease  from  the  language  of  litera- 
ture to  the  patois  of  the  provinces  and  the 
dialect  of  the  rabble. 

The  episodic  character  of  the  narrative 
and  the  curious  features  of  its  language  are 
responsible  for  two  facts  in  the  history  of  the 
text :  (i)  that  it  was  largely  used  for  excerpts 
and  selections  in  the  scrap-book  period  of 
Latin  literature,  which  led  to  its  final  loss  as 
a  whole ;  and  (2)  that  the  grammarians  con- 
tinually cite  it,  which  fact  enables  us  to  trace 
its  existence  as  a  whole  or  in  part  down  to  the 
end  of  the  sixth  century.  The  quotations 
from  it  and  the  allusions  to  it  in  Macrobius 
(a.  d.    400),    Servius    (a.  d.   400),    Lydus 


Introduction  51 

(a.  d.  520),  St.  Jerome  (a.  d.  410),  Fulgen- 
tius  (a.  d.  500),  Priscian  (a.  d.  450),  Dio- 
medes  (a.  d.  500),  Victorlnus  (a.  d.  350), 
Isidorus  (a.  d.  6^6),  and  Sidonius  Apolll- 
narls  (a.  d.  475),  all  serve  as  indications  of 
its  existence,  at  least  upon  the  shelves  of 
scholars.  In  the  seventh  and  eighth  cen- 
turies we  hear  no  more  of  Petronius ;  but  in 
the  ninth,  the  poetical  fragment  usually 
known  as  the  Carmen  de  Bella  Civili,  of  295 
hexameter  lines,  is  found  to  have  been  used 
for  reading  in  the  schools.  A  manuscript 
of  the  tenth  century  is  now  in  existence  and 
is  the  oldest  known.  It  contains,  however, 
only  a  part  of  the  present  text,  substantially 
all  except  §  26  (middle),  venerat  iam  tertius 
dies — §78,  —  that  is,  all  except  the  Cena 
Trimalchionis.  In  the  same  century  the 
ecclesiastic  Eugenius  Vulgarius  cites  the 
Satira ;  and  so,  too,  in  the  twelfth  century, 
the  English  scholar  John  of  Salisbury.  In 
the  thirteenth  century,  Vicentius  of  Beau- 
vais  quotes  Petronius. 


52  Introduction 

There  are  now  known  to  exist  twenty-one 
manuscripts  of  the  Satira^  distributed  among 
eleven  European  libraries,  —  five  in  the  Na- 
tional (Imperial)  Library  of  France,  one  in 
the  Bibliotheque  Mazarin,four  in  the  Library 
of  the  University  of  Leyden,  two  in  the 
Royal  Library  of  Munich,  two  in  the  Im- 
perial Library  at  Vienna,  one  in  the  Royal 
Library  at  Dresden,  one  in  the  Ambro- 
sian  Library  at  Milan,  two  in  the  Lauren- 
tian  Library  at  Florence,  one  in  the  Vatican 
Library  at  Rome,  and  one  in  the  Library  of 
the  Benedictine  Convent  of  St.  Placidius  at 
Messina,  besides  the  oldest  of  all,  the  Codex 
Bernensis,  usually  spoken  of  as  No.  357. 
This  is  written  on  fine  parchment  (quarto), 
and  consists  of  43  leaves  or  86  pages,  con- 
taining, besides  the  fragment  of  Petronius,  a 
number  of  other  things,  —  a  Greek  glossary, 
a  Latin  glossary,  and  a  part  of  the  Catilina 
of  Sallust.  The  whole  Cena  is  missing,  as 
are  also  a  number  of  other  chapters. 

The  most  important  manuscript  is  the  so- 


Introduction  53 

called  Codex  Traguriensis,  now  in  the  Bib- 
liotheque  Nationale  at  Paris.  This  which 
alone  contains,  in  addition  to  other  portions  of 
the  Satira^  the  whole  of  the  Cena  Trimalchio- 
niSy  was  discovered  in  the  Dalmatian  town  of 
Trau  (the  Roman  Tragurium)  by  one  Mari- 
nus  Statilius  (Pierre  Petit,  a  Frenchman)  in 

1663.  It  was  contained  in  the  library  of 
Nicolaus  Cippi,  an  Italian  gentleman,  bound 
up  with  the  poems  of  Catullus,  Tibullus, 
and  Propertius.  The  news  of  its  discovery 
created  a  sensation  through  Europe.  It  was 
reported  that  the  whole  of  Petronius  had 
been  recovered,  and  great  was  the  general 
anxiety  to  see  it.  Before  Marinus,  who 
was  a  scholar  of  much  ability,  had  finished 
his  work  upon  the  manuscript,  a  Paduan 
printer  named  Frambotto  in  some  way  got 
access  to  it  and  made  a  hasty  and  necessarily 
careless  copy  which  he  printed  at  Padua  in 

1664.  So  rude  and  imperfect  was  the  copy 
made  by  Frambotto,  and  so  many  were  the 
errors  of  his  printed  edition,  that  Wagenseil 


54  Introduction 

and  others  pronounced  the  discovery  a 
fraud,  and  the  whole  fragment  an  impu- 
dent forgery.  To  this  attack,  Marinus  put 
forth  two  very  able  and  convincing  replies, 
and  followed  them  by  printing  an  accurate 
edition  of  the  manuscript  at  Paris  later  in 
the  same  year  (1664).  This,  and  a  careful 
examination  of  the  manuscript  itself,  which 
proved  its  great  age,  soon  put  an  end  to  the 
controversy,  though  it  was  not  until  the  end 
of  the  century  that  the  Tragurian  fragment 
was  universally  accepted  as  genuine. 

The  Codex  Traguriensis  is  a  small  folio 
bound  in  leather  containing  237  written  and 
1 1  blank  pages,  the  latter  being  ruled  in  con- 
formity with  the  rest.  The  Satira  begins 
at  page  185.  From  page  185  to  page  205 
is  found  the  part  contained  in  the  ordinary 
editions.  On  page  205  is  the  statement  in 
red  ink  :  Petronii  Arhitri  Satyri  Fragmenta 
Explici  ,  .  .  ex  Libro  ^into  Decimo  et  Sexto 
Decimo.  Then  on  page  206  follows  the  Cena 
Trimalchionis.     The  end  of  the  manuscript 


Introduction  55 

contains  the  Moretum  of  Vergil  and  the  poem 
of  Claudianus  on  the  Phoenix. 

The  intense  interest  and  furious  con- 
troversy aroused  by  this  discovery  of  Mari- 
nus,  and  the  suggestions  of  fraud  that  were 
made  by  so  many,  were  undoubtedly  respon- 
sible for  a  very  remarkable  attempt  on  the 
part  of  one  Fran9ois  Nodot  in  1693  to  foist 
a  real  forgery  upon  the  learned  world.  No- 
dot,  who  was  a  French  soldier  of  fortune  and 
possessed  of  a  fair  education,  came  forward 
with  what  professed  to  be  an  entire  copy 
of  Petronius.  The  story  told  by  him  was 
this :  That  one  Du  Pin  had  been  present  at 
the  storming  of  Alba  Graeca  (Belgrade)  in 
1688,  and  in  the  sack  of  the  town  had  secured 
a  manuscript  of  great  antiquity  written  in 
characters  very  difficult  to  decipher;  that 
this  manuscript  had  been  copied  by  some 
person  not  named,  and  by  him  brought  in 
the  copy  to  a  merchant  of  Frankfort-on-the 
Main  (also  not  named)  who  had  in  the 
course  of  time  sent  it  to  Nodot  in  France. 


56  Introduction 

This  story,  though  somewhat  dubious  on 
the  face  of  it,  was  ingenious  in  one  respect, 
in  that  it  absolved  Nodot  from  the  necessity 
of  producing  the  original  manuscript  itself 
The  copy  was  laid  before  the  provincial 
Academies  of  Nimes  and  Aries,  and  after 
examining  the  text,  and  listening  to  Nodot's 
story,  the  Latinists  of  those  institutions  were 
convinced  of  the  genuineness  of  both.  The 
text  of  Nodot  was  presently  published  at 
Paris  by  Charpentier  with  the  punning 
motto.  Nodi  solvuntur  a  Nodo. 

It  is  fortunate  for  the  reputation  of  French 
classical  scholarship,  so  seriously  compro- 
mised by  the  credulity  of  the  faculties  of 
Nimes,  and  Aries,  that  the  fraudulent  char- 
acter of  Nodot's  production  was  at  once 
detected  and  exposed  by  a  Frenchman,  P.  D. 
Huet,  best  known  as  the  author  of  the  work 
De  Origine  Fabularum.  It  is  difficult,  in- 
deed, to  see  how  even  a  third-rate  Latinist 
could  have  been  imposed  upon ;  for  the 
Latin  of  Nodot's  text  was  not  merely  bad. 


Introduction  57 

not  merely  not  the  Latin  of  Petronius,  but 
very  evidently  the  Latin  of  a  seventeenth- 
century  Frenchman.  So  when  we  find  such 
phrases  and  words  as  ad  scientias  explicandas 
molesti  impetri,  and  castella  for  villa^  it  is 
very  clear  indeed  that  the  language  is  the 
Latin  of  Paris  and  not  the  Latin  of  Rome. 
It  was  also  a  suspicious  circumstance  that 
Nodot's  manuscript  supplied  every  omission 
in  the  existing  text  with  the  exception  of 
those  found  between  chapters  26  and  73, 
i.  e.  in  the  Cena  Trimalchionis^  a  fact  which 
seemed  to  show  that  he  shrank  from  the 
attempt  to  fill  in  the  text  where  a  minute 
knowledge  of  archaeological  detail  was  abso- 
lutely essential. 

Nodot's  fraud  never  had  the  slightest 
chance  of  success,  and  soon  ceased  to  be  dis- 
cussed ;  though  as  it  supplies  a  continuous 
narrative  in  place  of  what  would  otherwise 
be  a  fragmentary  and  broken  one,  several 
editors  have  printed  his  additions  as  a  part 
of  the  authentic  text,  distinguishing  it  some- 
times by  the  use  of  a  different  type. 


58  Introduction 

One  other  attempt  at  forgery  was  that  of 
a  learned  Spaniard,  Marchena,  who,  simply 
as  an  amusement  and  to  test  the  acumen  of 
the  critics,  published  at  Strasburg,  in  1800,  a 
small  fragment  purporting  to  be  the  part  of 
the  text  missing  from  the  twenty-sixth  chap- 
ter after  the  words  subinde  osculis  verberabat. 
This  fragment,  which  would  make  in  Buch- 
eler's  text  some  34  lines,  and  which  Mar- 
chena claimed  to  have  found  at  St.  Gallen  in 
Switzerland,  had  absolutely  no  internal 
marks  of  fraud.  It  was  an  altogether  perfect 
imitation  of  the  style  and  manner  of  Petro- 
nius,  and  was  of  an  indecency  that  if  anything 
surpassed  the  indecency  of  the  original  text. 
The  only  objection  that  scholars  could  make 
to  it  was  the  objection  based  upon  the  fact 
that  Marchena  would  not  produce  the  man- 
uscript copy  which  he  professed  to  have 
found.  Having  received  this  tribute  to  his 
Petronian  knowledge,  however,  Marchena 
promptly  acknowledged  that  he  had  himself 
written  the  fragment  as  a  pure  hoax.     Since 


Introduction  59 

that  time  there  have  been  no  additions  to 
the  accepted  text,  either  genuine  or  fraudu- 
lent ;  though  the  lost  books  of  Petronius, 
like  the  lost  books  of  Livy,  continue  to  tan- 
talise contemporary  Latinists  with  the  hope 
of  their  ultimate  recovery. 

There  is  a  passage  in  Sidonius  Apollinaris 
in  which  the  poet,  addressing  Petronius  in 
company  with  Cicero,  Livy,  and  Vergil, 
associates  him  with   Marseilles : 

"  Quid  vos  eloquii  canam  Latini 
Arlinas,  Patavine,  Mantuane  ? 
Et  te  Massiliensium  per  hortos 
Sacri  stipitis.  Arbiter,  colonum 
Hellespontiaco  parem  Priapo  ?  " 

Servius,  again,  in  his  commentary,  dealing 
with  a  line  of  the  Mneid,  cites  Petronius  as  an 
authority  regarding  a  certain  usage  of  the 
people  of  Marseilles.  It  is  a  tempting  sug- 
gestion that  one  finds  in  these  two  stray 
allusions  which  imply  a  Gallic  nativity  for 
the  author  of  the  greatest  novel  of  antiquity. 
There  is   probably  no  other  people   except 


6o  Introduction 

the  Jews  that  have  kept,  down  to  the  pres- 
ent day,  their  early  racial  traits  and  mental 
characteristics  so  completely  as  the  Gauls. 
The  passages  of  Caesar,  and  even  those  of 
Cato,  that  describe  them,  are  as  true  to-day 
as  the  observations  of  Philip  Gilbert  Hamer- 
ton  or  Mr.  W.  C.  Brownell.  The  nervous 
eagerness  for  something  new,  the  lack  of 
political  stability,  the  rash  bravery,  the  im- 
pulsiveness, the  love  of  warfare  and  of  la 
gloire,  the  intellectual  quickness,  the  fond- 
ness for  brilliant  talk,  —  all  these  were  noted 
down  for  us  two  thousand  years  ago,  and 
they  still  remain  the  most  striking  character- 
istics of  the  modern  French.  Upon  the  orig- 
inal stock  some  other  elements  have  been 
grafted,  but  they  have  been  absolutely  as- 
similated. The  Norseman  and  the  Teuton, 
on  French  soil,  have  become  thorough  Kelts. 
It  is,  therefore,  a  tempting  hypothesis 
that  makes  Petronius  the  literary  prede- 
cessor of  those  preternaturally  clever  writers 
of  modern   France  whose    spirit  at  least  is 


Introduction  6i 

that  which  breathes  in  every  page  of  the 
Satira,  Perfect  precision  and  firmness  of 
stylistic  touch  are  theirs  and  his.  A  per- 
vasive cynicism  —  not  the  cynicism  that 
makes  men  bitter,  but  the  far  more  hopeless 
cynicism  that  makes  them  utterly  contempt- 
uous—  they  share  with  him.  The  versatility, 
the  keen  observation,  the  unerring  strokes 
of  the  great  literary  artist,  are  conspicuous 
in  both.  The  sexual  instinct,  pervasive, 
always  present,  and  manifested  at  the  most 
unexpected  times,  this,  too,  Petronius  shares 
with  the  school  of  Gustave  Flaubert  and 
Guy  de  Maupassant.  If  he  was  a  Roman 
by  race,  a  Roman  as  Cicero  and  Tacitus 
were  Roman,  it  is  strange  indeed  that  he 
had  no  predecessors  and  no  true  successor, 
but  that  to  seek  a  fitting  parallel  for  his 
strangely  brilliant  fiction  we  must  pass  over 
the  intervening  centuries  and  find  it  only  in 
our  own  century  and  in  the  literary  art  of 
modern  France. 


Ill 

THE   CENA   TRIMALCHIONIS 

TRIMALCHIO'S  dinner  party  Is  one 
of  the  great  masterpieces  of  comic 
literature.  Wholly  apart  from  the  picture 
it  gives  —  one  of  the  very  best  that  have 
come  down  to  us  from  ancient  times  —  of 
the  typical  life  of  the  Roman  bourgeoisie^ 
apart  from  the  archaeological  value  of  the 
wealth  of  minute  details  in  which  it  abounds, 
and  apart  also  from  its  unusual  linguistic 
interest  in  giving  us  connected  specimens  of 
the  plebeian  Latinity  of  daily  life,  it  is  from 
beginning  to  end  a  bit  of  character-drawing 
and  sustained  fun  to  be  ranked  with  the 
creations  of  Fielding  and  Dickens  in  Eng- 
lish, of  Stinde  in  German,  and  of  Daudet  in 
French.  Trimalchio  himself  is  a  grotesque 
composite  of  Tittlebat  Titmouse  and 
Tartarin;    his    point     of    view,    and    what 


Introduction  63 

painters  might  call  his  atmosphere,  are 
those  of  the  immortal  Familie  Buchholz. 

The  two  companions,  Encolpius  and 
Ascyltus,  are  invited  to  a  dinner  given  by 
this  personage,  and  the  narrative  of  their 
experiences  there  is  given  in  full.  Trimal- 
chio  is  a  freedman  who,  having  secured  his 
start  in  life  by  no  very  dainty  practices,  has 
amassed  an  enormous  fortune  and  is  now 
enjoying  it.  He  is  a  bald,  red-faced  old 
fellow,  fond  of  eating  and  fonder  of  display, 
inordinately  conceited,  forever  bragging  of 
his  money,  and  anxious  also  to  seem  a  man 
of  literary  attainments,  though  his  ignorance 
of  everything  is  unbounded.  His  compan- 
ions at  table  are  nearly  all  men  of  his  own 
rank ;  and  there  is  his  wife  Fortunata,  a 
sharp,  practical,  shrewish  little  woman,  to 
whose  fidelity  and  care  Trimalchio,  who  has 
some  good  points,  frankly  ascribes  a  large 
share  of  his  success. 

The  details  of  the  dinner  are  given  in  full, 
and  the  mixture  of  lavish  profusion  and  utter 


64  Introduction 

lack  of  taste  and  savoirfaire  recall  the  descrip- 
tion by  Horace  of  the  dinner  which  the  snob 
Nasidienus  gave  in  honour  of  Maecenas 
(Sat.  ii.  8).  Trimalchio  does  not  come  to 
the  table  until  his  guests  have  been  seated 
and  the  dinner  is  well  under  way.  When  he 
does  enter,  somewhat  after  the  fashion  of  the 
Duke  of  Omnium  in  Framley  Parsonage,  he 
takes  care  to  let  his  guests  know  that  he  is  a 
good  deal  inconvenienced  by  having  to  keep 
his  engagement  with  them.  Taking  the 
chief  place  at  table,  he  ostentatiously  picks 
his  teeth  with  a  pin,  and  for  a  time  plays 
checkers  with  a  friend  instead  of  taking  any 
part  in  the  conversation.  Eggs  are  served 
under  a  wooden  hen,  and  when  opened  prove 
to  be  only  paste  with  a  bird  inside.  Wine 
is  served  which  is  labelled,  "  Opimian  :  100 
years  old,"  though  the  genuine  Opimian 
would  have  been  much  older.  Trimalchio 
brags  of  it  and  politely  adds  :  "  It  is  even 
better  than  what  I  put  on  my  table  yesterday, 
when  I  had  guests  who  were  of  much  higher 


Introduction  65 

social  standing  than  you."  A  remarkable 
medley  of  rich  food  is  presently  set  upon  the 
table :  capons,  hare,  sow's  pau2ich,  fish, 
kidneys,  roast  beef,  meat  pie,  cheese,  lobster, 
goose,  honey,  and  bread.  The  guests  begin 
to  talk ;  one  of  them  describes  in  an  under- 
tone, for  the  enlightenment  of  Encolpius, 
the  different  personages  at  the  table,  and  tells 
tales  of  the  hostess  Fortunata.  Trimalchio 
makes  jokes  and  begins  to  display  his  learning. 
More  dishes  appear.  A  whole  boar  is  served 
up  with  sucking  pigs  of  pastry.  A  slave 
rips  up  the  boar  with  a  knife,  and  a  number 
of  little  birds  fly  out  into  the  room.  A  slave 
boy  recites  some  of  Trimalchio's  poetry  to 
the  company,  and  receives  his  freedom  as  a 
reward.  Presently  Trimalchio  gets  up  from 
the  table  to  visit  the  next  room,  and  con- 
versation becomes  general.  One  of  the 
guests  deplores  the  practice  of  bathing  every 
day.  They  praise  drink,  and  tell  anecdotes 
of  friends  who  have  lately  died.  Another 
laments   the  degeneracy   of  the  times,  and 

5 


66  Introduction 

recalls  the  days  when  he  first  came  over  from 
Asia.  Gladiators  and  the  races  are  talked 
over.  One  of  the  freedmen  gives  his  views 
on  education. 

"  My  son,"  he  says,  "  is  getting  to  be 
quite  a  scholar.  ...  I  've  just  been  buying 
the  boy  some  law-books,  as  I  want  him  to 
get  a  snack  of  that  for  use  in  business. 
This  sort  of  learning  makes  bread  and  butter; 
but  as  for  literature,  he 's  daubed  himself  up 
enough  with  that  already.  The  fact  is,  I  'm 
going  to  have  him  learn  a  real  trade,  either 
barbering  or  auctioneering,  or  law,  which 
will  stick  to  him  till  he  dies.  I  keep  dinning 
into  his  ears  every  day,  '  My  boy,  don't 
forget  that  whatever  you  learn  is  your  own. 
Just  look  at  Phileros  the  lawyer.  Why  if 
he  had  n't  been  educated  he  'd  have  starved. 
Only  the  other  day  he  was  a  pedler  with 
his  wares  on  his  shoulder.  Now  he 's  as 
rich  as  Norbanus  himself.  I  tell  you  a 
good  trade   never  goes   hungry.'  " 

Trimalchio    presently    returns    and    dis- 


Introduction  67 

courses  on  the  state  of  his  bowels,  with  a  dis- 
quisition on  the  most  efficacious  cathartics. 
Later  he  lectures  on  Corinthian  bronzes, 
glass,  and  bric-a-brac.  He  has  a  slave  come 
in  and  read  the  official  report  of  what  had 
happened  on  Trimalchio's  estates  the  pre- 
ceding day,  —  this  in  imitation  of  the  Roman 
Acta  Diurna.  Trimalchio  then  discusses 
poetry,  writes  an  impromptu  verse  himself, 
and,  growing  somewhat  dogmatic  with  wine, 
utters  a  number  of  aphorisms. 

"  Of  all  dumb  brutes  the  ox  and  the  sheep 
are  the  most  laborious ;  to  oxen  we  owe  the 
bread  we  eat  and  to  the  sheep  the  clothes  we 
wear.  What  a  shame,  then,  it  is  that  any  one 
should  eat  mutton  or  wear  a  tunic  !  As  to 
bees,  I  think  them  almost  divine,  for  they  can 
spit  honey.  .  .  .  That 's  why  they  sting,  too, 
for  there  's  no  rose  without  its  thorns." 

The  guests  now  begin  to  feel  the  effects  of 
the  wine.  Ascyltos  quarrels  with  one  of  the 
freedmen,  and  gets  a  flood  of  Billingsgate, 
which  is  checked  by  Trimalchio.     A  troop 


68  Introduction 

of  declaimers  enter  who  recite  from  Homer, 
in  costume.  Trimalchio  tells  the  story  of 
the  Trojan  War. 

"  Diomede  and  Ganymede  were  two 
brothers,  whose  sister  was  Helen.  Aga- 
memnon carried  her  off  and  surreptitiously 
substituted  a  hind  in  her  place,  for  Diana. 
So,  as  Homer  tells  us,  the  Trojans  and 
Tarentines  fought  together,  but  Agamemnon 
conquered,  and  married  his  daughter  Iphi- 
genia  to  Achilles,  which  drove  Ajax  mad,  as 
you  shall  presently  see." 

At  this,  a  boiled  calf  is  brought  in,  and  an 
actor  followed  to  represent  Ajax.  Simulating 
madness,  he  rushes  at  the  calf  with  drawn 
sword,  slashes  it  into  slices,  and  then  presents 
a  piece  to  each  of  the  astonished  guests. 
The  dessert  follows :  sweetmeats,  pastry, 
apples,  grapes,  and  other  fruits,  and  then  more 
wine.  Those  present  begin  to  tell  stories. 
Niceros  relates  his  adventures  with  a  were- 
wolf; Trimalchio,  a  witch  story.  A  friend 
of  Trimalchio's  with  his  wife  enters  and  takes 


Introduction  69 

his  place  at  table.  Trimalchio,  becoming 
maudlin,  has  his  will  brought  in  and  read, 
and,  after  telling  what  arrangements  he  has 
made  for  his  burial,  begins  to  weep.  All 
rise  from  the  table  and  follow  him  to  the 
bath-house  for  a  hot  bath,  after  which  they 
proceed  to  another  dining-room  where  a 
second  elaborate  meal  is  ready.  Trimal- 
chio has  a  chicken  stewed  in  the  room  as  a 
special  dish  for  himself;  and  presently  falls 
to  quarrelling  with  Fortunata,  flings  a  cup  at 
her  head,  and  abuses  her  in  a  volley  of  invec- 
tives. Peace  is  restored,  more  wine  is  drunk, 
and  finally  Trimalchio  stretches  himself 
out  as  though  lying  in  state,  the  horn- 
blowers  play  a  funeral  march,  and  with  this 
the  dinner  ends. 


TRIMALCHIO'S   DINNER 


Trimalchio's  Dinner 

THE  day  at  last  arrived  with  its  promise 
of  a  free  dinner  for  us  ;  but  we  were 
so  much  done  up  that  we  really  thought  of 
getting  out  of  the  whole  affair.  While  we 
were  thinking  the  matter  over,  however,  one 
of  Agamemnon's  servants  came  in  and  said  : 

"  Don't  you  really  know  at  whose  house 
the  dinner  is  to  be  ?  Why,  it 's  at  Trimal- 
chio's,  and  a  most  sumptuous  sort  of  person 
he  is.  He  keeps  a  time-piece  in  his  dining- 
room  and  has  a  man  blow  on  a  horn  every 
hour  of  the  day,  so  as  to  remind  him  just 
how  much  of  life  he  's  losing." 

At  this  we  forgot  all  our  troubles  and 
started  to  dress  for  dinner,  telling  our  young 
friend  Giton  to  follow  us  to  the  baths  in  the 
character  of  our  attendant,  —  a  part  which  he 


74       Trimalchio's  Dinner 

very  willingly  assumed.  And  so,  after  dress- 
ing, we  took  a  preliminary  stroll,  and  pres- 
ently espied  a  bald-headed  old  man,  in 
reddish  clothes,  playing  tennis  in  the  midst 
of  a  number  of  long-haired  slaves.  It  was 
not  the  slaves,  however,  that  attracted  us  so 
much  as  the  old  gentleman  himself  who, 
with  slippers  on  his  feet,  was  serving  a  green 
ball.  As  soon  as  a  ball  fell  to  the  ground 
he  refused  to  touch  it  again,  but  took  a  fresh 
one  from  a  bag  which  a  slave  by  his  side 
held  out  to  the  players.  While  I  was 
watching  his  luxurious  manner  of  playing, 
up  comes  Menelaus  and  says  he  : 

"  This  is  the  gentleman  at  whose  house 
you  are  going  to  dine  ;  and,  in  fact,  this 
game  is  really  a  preliminary  to  the  dinner." 

Before  long,  we  entered  the  public  bath 
and,  after  remaining  a  while  in  the  hot  water, 
we  changed  to  cold.  Trimalchio,  after  being 
carefully  perfumed,  was  rubbed  down,  though 
not  with  towels,  but  with  mantles  made  of 
the  very   softest  wool ;   while  three    atten- 


Trimalchio's  Dinner      75 

dants  who  stood  there  drank  Falernian  wine, 
of  which  they  spilled  a  good  deal  in  their 
wrangling  ;  whereupon  Trimalchio  remarked 
that  this  was  all  his  treat.  Afterwards, 
wrapped  up  in  a  scarlet  dressing-gown,  he 
took  his  seat  on  a  litter  preceded  by  four 
gorgeously  decorated  footmen,  and  by  a 
wheeled  chair  in  which  was  his  favourite 
slave,  a  blear-eyed  old  fellow,  homelier  even 
than  his  master.  Then  Trimalchio  was 
carried  off  home,  a  musician  marching  beside 
him  with  a  pair  of  shrill  pipes  and  playing 
all  the  way  as  though  he  were  saying  some- 
thing privately  in  his  master's  ear.  We 
followed  along,  filled  with  admiration,  and 
in  Agamemnon's  company  we  reached 
Trimalchio's  front  door,  on  one  of  whose 
posts  was  fastened  a  notice  with  this  in- 
scription : 

**If  any  Slave  shall  leave  the  House  without  his 

Master's  Permission  he  shall  Receive  a 

Hundred  Lashes." 


76       Trimalchio's  Dinner 

At  the  entrance  to  the  house  was  the 
doorkeeper,  dressed  in  green  with  a  cherry- 
coloured  belt  around  his  waist,  and  engaged 
in  shelling  peas  into  a  silver  dish.  Above 
the  threshold  hung  a  golden  cage  in  which  a 
magpie  kept  saying,  "  How  do  you  do  ? "  to 
us  as  we  entered.  I  fell  to  staring  at  all 
these  things  until  I  bent  over  backwards  so 
far  that  I  nearly  broke  my  legs ;  for  on  the 
left  as  we  entered,  and  not  far  from  the 
janitor's  room,  was  a  great  dog  fastened  by 
a  chain  and  painted  on  the  wall,  while  over- 
head in  capital  letters  was  the  inscription : 

**  Beware  of  the  Dog!" 

My  friends  laughed  at  me;  but  I  soon  re- 
covered my  presence  of  mind  and  let  my 
eyes  rove  over  the  entire  wall ;  for  on  it  was 
painted,  first  a  slave  auction,  and  then  Tri- 
malchio  himself,  with  long  hair  and  holding 
a  wand  in  his  hand,  entering  Rome  guided 
by  Minerva.  Another  painting  represented 
him  learning  arithmetic,  and  another  showed 


"Beware  of  the  Dog."      (Pompeian   Mosaic.) 


Trimalchio's  Dinner       77 

him  as  promoted  to  a  stewardship.  The 
meaning  of  all  these  things  the  thoughtful 
artist  had  carefully  explained  by  legends 
painted  under  each.  At  the  other  end  of 
the  entrance,  Mercury  was  represented  as 
raising  Trimalchio  aloft  by  the  chin,  and 
there  was  also  Fortune  with  her  horn  of 
plenty,  and  the  three  Fates  twisting  their 
golden  threads.  I  observed  in  the  portico  a 
number  of  running  footmen  who  were  prac- 
tising with  their  trainer,  and  in  one  corner  I 
saw  a  large  closet  in  a  recess  of  which  were 
household  gods  made  of  silver,  a  marble 
statuette  of  Venus,  and  a  large  gold  box  in 
which  they  said  the  master  of  the  house  kept 
his  beard  after  it  had  been  shaved  off. 

I  fell  to  questioning  the  janitor  as  to 
what  were  the  pictures  in  the  middle,  and  he 
told  me  that  they  represented  scenes  from 
the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey ^  and  also  the  glad- 
iatorial contests  of  a  certain  Laenas.  I  had 
very  little  time  to  gaze  on  them,  however,  for 
presently  we  entered  the  dining-room,  near 


78       Trimalchio's  Dinner 

the  door  of  which  a  bailiff  was  making  up 
the  accounts.  What  I  most  wondered  at 
was  that  on  the  door-posts  was  a  bundle  of 
rods  with  axes,  one  end  of  which  tapered  off 
into  the  semblance  of  the  beak  of  a  ship 
with  the  legend : 

**  To  Gaius    Pompeius  Trimalchio,  Augustan  Com- 
missioner, CiNNAMUs,   HIS  Steward,  has 
Consecrated  this." 

Beneath  the  inscription  a  double  lamp  was 
suspended,  and  tablets  were  affixed  to  each 
door-post,  one,  if  I  remember  rightly,  bear- 
ing this  announcement : 

**  On  the  30TH  and  3 1ST  of  December,  our  Master 

DINES    OUT." 

On  the  other  were  painted  the  moon  and 
the  seven  stars,  and  on  a  calendar  a  little 
knob  served  to  indicate  which  days  were 
lucky  and  which  were  unlucky. 

Imbued  with  all  these  delightful  facts, 
just  as  we  were  entering  the  dining-room  a 
slave  who  had  been  assigned  to   this  office 


Trimalchio's  Dinner       79 

called  out,  "  Right  foot  first !  "  It  quite 
upset  us  for  a  moment  for  fear  lest  any  one 
of  us  should  cross  the  threshold  in  an  ill- 
omened  way  contrary  to  orders ;  but  we 
managed  to  get  our  right  feet  in  first,  and 
just  at  this  moment  a  slave,  stripped  of  his 
outer  clothing,  threw  himself  at  our  feet  and 
begged  us  to  save  him  from  punishment. 
He  explained  that  the  offence  for  which  he 
was  in  peril  was  no  great  one ;  that  he  had 
simply  allowed  the  steward's  clothes  to  be 
stolen  from  the  bath-house;  and  that  these 
were  worth  only  ten  thousand  sesterces.  So 
we  went  back,  right  foot  first,  and  begged  the 
steward,  who  was  counting  his  money  in  the 
outer  hall,  to  let  the  slave  oflf  from  punish- 
ment. The  steward  looked  up  disdainfully 
and  replied : 

"  It  is  n't  the  loss  that  I  'm  vexed  about, 
so  much  as  the  carelessness  of  this  confounded 
slave  !  The  clothes  that  he  lost  were  my 
dinner-clothes  which  a  dependent  of  mine 
gave  me  on  my  birthday.     To  be  sure,  they 


8o       Trimalchio's  Dinner 

were  of  Tyrian  purple,  but  they  'd  already 
been  washed  once.  Well,  well,  I  '11  let  him 
off  for  your  sake." 

Greatly  impressed  by  this  mark  of  favour, 
we  had  no  sooner  entered  the  dining-room 
than  the  slave  whose  punishment  we  had 
begged  off  rushed  up  to  us,  and  to  our  sur- 
prise showered  kisses  upon  us  and  thanked 
us  for  our  kindness,  saying  finally  : 

"  You  '11  find  out  pretty  soon  what  sort 
of  a  man  he  is  to  whom  you  have  done  a 
favour.  You  know  the  master's  wine  is 
always  the  butler's  gift." 

Presently  we  took  our  places,  and  Alexan- 
drian slaves  poured  water  cooled  with  snow 
over  our  hands,  while  others  approached  our 
feet  and  with  great  skill  began  paring  our 
corns  ;  nor  were  they  silent  even  over  this 
rather  disagreeable  task,  but  kept  singing  all 
the  time.  I  wanted  to  find  out  whether  the 
whole  household  sang  ;  and  so  I  asked  for 
something  to  drink ;  whereupon  a  slave 
served  me,  singing  the  while,  like  the  others. 


Trimalchio's  Dinner       8  i 

a  shrill  ditty  ;  and  in  fact,  every  slave  who 
was  asked  for  anything  did  exactly  the 
same,  so  that  you  would  have  imagined 
yourself  in  the  green-room  of  a  comic  opera 
troupe  rather  than  in  the  dining-room  of  a 
private  gentleman. 

A  very  choice  lot  of  hors  cTa^uvres  was  then 
brought  in  ;  for  we  had  already  taken  our 
places,  all  except  Trimalchio  himself  for 
whom  the  seat  of  honour  was  reserved. 
Among  the  objects  placed  before  us  was 
a  young  ass  made  of  Corinthian  bronze  and 
fitted  with  a  sort  of  pack-saddle  which  con- 
tained on  one  side  pale  green  olives  and  on 
the  other  side  dark  ones.  Two  dishes 
flanked  this ;  and  on  the  margin  of  them 
Trimalchio's  name  was  engraved  and  the 
weight  of  the  silver.  Then  there  were  little 
bridge-like  structures  of  iron  which  held 
dormice  seasoned  with  honey  and  poppy- 
seed  ;  and  smoking  sausages  were  arranged 
on  a  silver  grill  which  had  underneath  it  dark 
Syrian  plums  to  represent  black  coals,  and 

6 


8  2       Trimalchio's  Dinner 

scarlet  pomegranate  seeds  to  represent  red- 
hot  ones. 

In  the  midst  of  all  this  magnificence  Tri- 
malchio  was  brought  in  to  the  sound  of 
music  and  propped  up  on  a  pile  of  well- 
stuffed  cushions.  The  very  sight  of  him 
almost  made  us  laugh  in  spite  of  ourselves ; 
for  his  shaven  pate  was  thrust  out  of  a  scar- 
let robe,  and  around  his  neck  he  had  tucked 
a  long  fringed  napkin  with  a  broad  purple 
stripe  running  down  the  middle  of  it.  On 
the  little  finger  of  his  left  hand  he  wore  a 
huge  gilt  ring,  and  on  the  last  joint  of  the 
next  finger  a  ring  that  appeared  to  be  of 
solid  gold,  but  having  little  iron  stars  upon 
it.  Moreover,  lest  we  should  fail  to  take  in 
all  his  magnificence,  he  had  bared  his  right 
arm,  which  was  adorned  with  a  golden  brace- 
let and  an  ivory  circle  fastened  by  a  glit- 
tering clasp. 

As  he  sat  there  picking  his  teeth   with  a 
silver  toothpick,  he  remarked  : 

"  Well,  friends,  it  was  just  a  bit  incon- 


Trimalchio's  Dinner       83 

venient  for  me  to  dine  now  ;  but,  so  as  not  to 
delay  you  by  my  absence,  I  have  denied  my- 
self a  considerable  amount  of  pleasure.  You 
will  allow  me,  however,  to  finish  my  game." 

A  slave  came  in  carrying  a  backgammon- 
board  of  polished  wood  and  also  crystal  dice; 
and  I  noted,  as  a  very  dainty  detail,  that  instead 
of  white  and  black  pieces,  he  used,  in  playing, 
gold  and  silver  coins.  While  he  went  on  with 
his  game,  uttering  as  he  played  all  sorts 
of  Billingsgate,  and  while  we  were  still  eat- 
ing the  hors  d^osuvres^  a  tray  was  brought  in 
with  a  basket  on  which  a  wooden  fowl 
was  placed  with  its  wings  spread  out  in  a 
circle  after  the  fashion  of  setting  hens. 
Immediately  two  slaves  approached  and 
amid  a  burst  of  music  began  to  poke  around 
in  the  straw,  and  having  presently  dis- 
covered there  some  pea-hens'  eggs,  they  dis- 
tributed them   among  the   guests. 

Trimalchio  looked  up  during  this  opera- 
tion and  said,  "  Gentlemen,  I  had  the  hens* 
eggs  placed  under  this  fowl ;  but  I  'm  rather 


84       Trimalchio's  Dinner 

afraid  they  have  young  chickens  in  them. 
Let 's  see  whether  they  're  still  fit  to  suck." 

So  we  took  our  spoons,  which  weighed  not 
less  than  half  a  pound  each,  and  broke  the 
egg-shells,  which  were  made  of  flour  paste. 
As  I  did  so,  I  was  almost  tempted  to  throw 
my  egg  on  the  floor,  for  it  looked  as  though 
a  chicken  had  just  been  formed  inside  ;  but 
when  I  heard  an  old  diner-out  by  my  side 
saying :  "  There  's  bound  to  be  something 
good  here,"  I  thrust  my  finger  through  the 
shell  and  drew  out  a  plump  reed-bird, 
surrounded  by  yolk  of  egg  well  seasoned 
with  pepper. 

Trimalchio  had  now  given  up  his  game 
and  called  for  the  same  dainties  that  we  had 
had,  inviting  us  with  a  loud  voice  to  take  a 
drink  of  honeyed  wine  also.  Just  then, 
however,  at  a  signal  given  by  music,  all  the 
dishes  were  swept  oflF  at  once  by  a  troop  of 
slaves  who  sang  over  their  work.  Amid  the 
bustle,  a  silver  dish  happened  to  fall  on  the 
floor,  and  when  one  of  the  servants  started 


Trimalchio's  Dinner       85 

to  pick  it  up,  Trimalchio  ordered  him  to 
be  soundly  cuffed,  and  told  him  to  throw 
it  down  again ;  and  presently  there  came  in 
a  servant,  broom  in  hand,  who  swept  up  the 
silver  dish  along  with  the  rest  of  the  rubbish 
that  lay  upon  the  floor.  After  this,  there 
entered  two  long-haired  iEthiopian  slaves 
carrying  little  bags  such  as  are  used  for 
sprinkling  the  sand  in  the  amphitheatre,  and 
from  these  they  poured  wine  over  our  hands  ; 
for  water  was  not  good  enough  to  wash  in  at 
that  house. 

We  complimented  Trimalchio  on  all  these 
elegant  little  details,  and  he  observed 
complacently : 

"  Mars  loves  a  fair  field ;  so  I  had  a 
separate  table  given  to  each  guest.  Inciden- 
tally, too,  these  wretched  slaves  will  not 
overheat  us  by  their  crowding." 

Immediately  glass  wine-jars  were  brought 
in,  carefully  sealed  with  plaster,  and  on  their 
necks  there  were  little  tags  with  this  legend : 
"  Falernian  Opimian^  one  hundred  years  old  J* 


86       Trimalchio's  Dinner 

While  we  were  reading  the  tags,  Trimalchio 
clapped  his  hands,  and  presently  began  to 
hold  forth  : 

"  Oh  dear,  see  how  much  longer-lived 
wine  is  than  any  poor  mortal  !  Let 's  drink, 
then,  and  make  merry,  for  wine  is  really  life. 
Just  look  ;  here  's  genuine  old  Opimian.  I 
didn't  put  nearly  such  good  liquor  as  this 
on  the  table  yesterday,  and  yet  the  people 
who  dined  with  me  then  were  socially  very 
much  superior  to  you." 

As  we  were  drinking  the  wine,  and  noting 
very  carefully  all  his  evidences  of  good  taste, 
a  slave  brought  him  a  silver  skeleton  ingen- 
iously put  together  so  that  its  limbs  could  be 
thrown  out  of  joint  and  made  to  turn  in  any 
direction.  This  Trimalchio  kept  throwing 
again  and  again  upon  the  table  and  making 
it  assume  all  sorts  of  shapes,  until  at  last 
he  observed  : 

**  Alas  and  alack  !  what  a  nothing  is  man  ! 
We  all  shall  be  bones  at  the  end  of  life's  span  : 
So  let  us  be  jolly  as  long  as  we  can." 


Trimalchio's  Dinner       87 

We  were  still  complimenting  him  on  his 
philosophy,  when  a  course  was  served  whose 
peculiarity  attracted  every  one's  attention ; 
for  the  double  tray  in  which  it  was  set  had 
the  twelve  signs  of  the  Zodiac  arranged  in  a 
circle  and  over  each  sign  the  chief  butler  had 
arranged  some  kind  of  food  that  was  appro- 
priate to  it,  —  over  the  Ram,  some  chick-peas 
with  tendrils  that  curled  like  a  ram's  horns ; 
over  the  Bull,  a  bit  of  beef;  over  the  Twins, 
a  pair  of  lamb's  fries  and  kidneys ;  over  the 
Crab,  a  garland ;  over  the  Lion,  an  African 
fig ;  over  the  Virgin,  a  sow's  paunch  ;  over 
the  Balance,  a  pair  of  scales  on  one  of  which 
was  placed  a  tart  and  on  the  other  a  cake ; 
over  the  Scorpion,  a  crab ;  over  Aquarius,  a 
goose ;  over  the  Fish,  two  mullets.  In  the 
middle  was  a  piece  of  fresh  turf  supporting 
a  honeycomb.  An  Egyptian  slave  passed 
us  some  bread  in  a  silver  bread-plate,  while 
Trimalchio  croaked  out  a  popular  song  from 
the  musical  farce  called  l^he  Garlic  Eater. 

We  were   making   ready   to  attack   these 


88       Trimalchio's  Dinner 

absurd  viands,  though  with  no  great  eager- 
ness, when  Trimalchio  remarked : 

"  Come,  let 's  dine.  This  is  really  the 
very  sauce  of  the  dinner." 

As  he  said  this,  four  slaves  came  forward 
with  a  solemn  dance-step  to  the  sound  of 
music  and  took  off  the  cover  from  the  upper 
part  of  the  tray.  As  soon  as  they  had  done 
this  we  saw,  underneath  the  cover,  capons 
and  sows'  breasts,  and  a  hare  with  feathers 
stuck  in  its  back  so  as  to  represent  Pegasus. 
We  observed  also  in  the  corner  of  the  tray  a 
figure  of  Marsyas,  holding  a  wine-skin  from 
which  highly  peppered  fish-sauce  flowed  out 
over  the  fish,  which  swam  in  it  as  though 
they  were  in  a  brook.  The  slaves  began  to 
applaud,  and  we  all  joined  in  vigorously, 
laughing  as  we  fell  to,  over  these  choice 
dainties.  Trimalchio,  equally  delighted  at 
this  culinary  surprise,  called  out :  "  Carver  !  " 
and  at  once  a  man  provided  with  a  knife  and 
making  elaborate  gestures  in  time  to  the  music, 
hacked  up  the  meat  in  such  a  fashion  that 


Trimalchio's  Dinner       89 

you  would  have  imagined  him  to  be  a  chariot- 
fighter  slashing  about  to  the  sound  of  a 
water-organ.  Trimalchio  in  a  drawling  tone 
kept  up  his  exclamation,  "  Carver  !  Carver  ! " 
so  that  suspecting  the  repetition  of  this  word 
to  have  some  humorous  intention,  I  did  not 
hesitate  to  question  the  guest  who  sat  beside 
me.  He  was  quite  familiar  with  the  whole 
thing,  and  explained  it  by  saying  : 

"  Do  you  see  the  man  who  has  carved  the 
meat  ?  His  name  is  Carver.  And  so,  as 
often  as  Trimalchio  says  :  *  Carve  her ! '  he 
calls  the  slave  by  name  and  at  the  same  time 
tells  him  what  to  do." 

I  was  unable  to  eat  another  mouthful ;  and 
so,  turning  to  my  companion,  I  tried  to  draw 
as  much  information  out  of  him  as  possible, 
and  to  get  the  run  of  the  gossip  of  the 
house,  asking,  in  the  first  place,  who  the 
woman  was  who  was  darting  here  and  there 
about  the  room. 

"  Oh  !  "  said  he,  "  that 's  Trimalchio's 
wife.     Her    name   is    Fortunata.     She    has 


go       Trimalchio's  Dinner 

money  to  burn  now,  but  a  little  while  ago 
what  do  you  suppose  she  was  ?  Your 
honour  will  excuse  me  for  saying  so,  but 
really  in  those  days  you  would  n't  have 
taken  a  piece  of  bread  from  her  hand.  And 
now,  without  any  why  or  wherefore,  she  's  at 
the  top  notch  and  is  all  the  world  to  Trimal- 
chio,  —  in  fact,  if  she  should  say  it  was  night 
at  noonday,  he  'd  believe  her.  As  for  Tri- 
malchio  himself,  he  's  so  rich  that  he  does  n't 
know  how  much  money  he  's  got ;  but  this 
jade  has  an  eye  to  everything,  even  the  things 
that  you  would  n't  think  about  yourself. 
She  does  n't  drink,  she 's  as  straight  as  a 
string  —  in  fact,  a  really  smart  woman  ;  but 
she  has  an  awfully  sharp  tongue,  a  regular 
magpie  on  a  perch.  If  she  likes  any  one,  she 
likes  him  way  down  to  the  ground,  and  if  she 
doesn't  like  him,  she  just  hates  him  !  Tri- 
malchio's  estates  are  so  large  that  it  would 
tire  a  bird  to  fly  over  them,  and  he  has 
heaps  on  heaps  of  cash.  Take  his  silver 
plate,  for  instance.     Why,  there  's  more  of 


Trimalchio's  Dinner       91 

It  in  his  janitor's  office  than  most  persons 
have  in  their  entire  outfit;  and  his  slaves, — 
well,  sir,  they  're  so  numerous  that  I  don't 
think  that  a  tenth  part  of  them  would  recog- 
nise their  own  master.  In  fact,  when  it 
comes  to  money  he  can  buy  up  any  of  these 
chumps  here  ten  times  over;  and  there  's  no 
reason  for  his  paying  out  money  for  any- 
thing at  all,  because  he  produces  everything 
on  his  own  place  —  wool  and  cedar  wood 
and  pepper,  —  why,  if  you  were  to  ask  for 
hens'  milk,  you  'd  get  it !  To  give  you  an 
instance :  he  found  that  he  was  n't  getting 
very  good  wool ;  so  he  bought  some  rams  at 
Tarentum  and  changed  the  breed  of  his 
sheep.  Again,  because  he  wanted  to  have 
Athenian  honey  right  here  on  his  estate,  he 
imported  bees  from  Athens,  and  incidentally 
these  improved  the  breed  of  the  native  bees 
also.  Only  a  few  days  ago  he  wrote  and 
ordered  mushroom-seed  to  be  sent  him  from 
India.  He  has  n't  a  single  mule  on  his  place 
that  was  n't  sired  by  a  wild  ass.     Just  see 


92       Trimalchio's  Dinner 

how  many  cushions  he  has  here.  Every 
single  one  of  them  has  either  purple  or  scar- 
let stuffing.  That 's  what  I  call  being  rich. 
But  you  're  not  to  suppose  that  his  associates 
here  are  to  be  sneezed  at,  for  they  've  got 
plenty  of  rocks  too.  Just  look  at  that  man 
who  has  the  last  place  at  the  table.  Even 
he  has  to-day  his  little  eight  hundred  thou- 
sand, and  yet  he  started  out  with  nothing. 
It  was  n't  very  long  ago  that  he  was  a  porter 
carrying  wood  on  his  back  through  the 
street.  But,  as  the  saying  goes,  he  found  a 
fairy  wishing-cap.  I  never  grudge  a  man 
his  good  luck.  It  only  means  that  he  knows 
how  to  lookout  for  himself;  and  this  chap 
over  here  not  long  ago  put  up  his  shanty  for 
sale  with  this  sort  of  an  advertisement : 

"  *  Gaius  Pompeius  Diogenes  will  let  this 
lodging  from  July  first,  having  just  bought 
a  large  house  for  himself.' 

"  Now  take  the  case  of  that  other  man  over 
there  who  has  the  freedman's  place  at  the 
table.     How  well  off  do  you  suppose  he  is  ? 


^j-v-^y 


\,: 


% 


1 


Interior   of  Roman   House. 


Trimalchio's  Dinner      93 

I  don't  know  anything  against  him,  but  he  's 
seen  the  time  when  he  had  his  httle  million ; 
only  somehow  or  other  he  went  wrong. 
To-day  I  don't  imagine  he  has  a  hair  on  his 
head  that  is  n't  mortgaged,  and  it  is  n't  his 
own  fault  either,  for  there 's  no  better  man  in 
the  world;  but  it's  the  fault  of  his  con- 
founded freedmen  who  made  way  with  every- 
thing that  he  had.  You  know  the  saying, 
'  Too  many  cooks  spoil  the  broth,'  and  the 
other  saying  that  *  He  who  loses  money  loses 
friends.'  And  what  a  fine  profession  he  had, 
too,  just  as  you  see  him  now  !  He  was  an 
undertaker.  He  used  to  dine  like  a  king, 
on  wild  boar,  with  pastry  and  birds,  and  he 
had  cooks  and  bakers  by  the  score.  They 
used  to  spill  more  wine  under  his  table  than 
most  men  have  in  their  whole  wine-cellars. 
In  fact,  he  was  a  fairy  vision  rather  than  a 
man.  When  his  affairs  got  into  Queer 
Street  and  he  was  afraid  his  creditors  would 
think  that  things  were  in  a  bad  way,  he 
wanted  to  raise  some  money  on  his  goods 


94       Trimalchio's  Dinner 

and  chattels ;  so  he  advertised  an  auction  of 
them  in  this  fashion  :  *  Julius  Proculus  will 
hold  an  auction  for  the  sale  of  his  superflu- 
ous property/  " 

Trimalchio  interrupted  this  pleasant  gos- 
sip, for  the  course  had  already  been  removed, 
and  the  guests,  growing  lively,  had  begun  to 
give  their  attention  to  the  wine  and  to  gen- 
eral conversation.  So,  resting  on  his  elbow, 
he  remarked  : 

"  I  hope  that  you  will  compliment  this 
wine  by  drinking  a  plenty.  You  know  the 
fish  that  you  have  eaten  ought  to  have  some- 
thing to  swim  in.  Did  you  really  suppose, 
I  should  like  to  know,  that  I  was  satisfied 
with  the  sort  of  dinner  that  you  saw  in  the 
lower  part  of  the  tray  ?  Did  you  take  me 
for  that  sort  of  a  hairpin  ?  Well,  well,  a 
man  has  got  to  have  some  scientific  knowl- 
edge in  dining.  God  bless  my  former 
owner  who  was  bound  to  make  me  a  man  of 
the  world;  for  now  I  can  encounter  nothing 
that  really    surprises    me,   not    even    such 


Trimalchio's  Dinner       95 

things  as  this  tray  had  on  it.  The  heaven 
represented  here,  in  which  the  twelve  gods 
dwell,  is  divided  into  the  same  number  of 
signs ;  and  now,  for  example,  it  falls  under 
the  dominion  of  the  Ram,  and  so  whoever  is 
born  under  that  sign  owns  many  flocks  and 
much  wool,  and  has  himself  moreover  a  hard 
head,  a  brow  without  shame,  and  a  sharp 
horn.  Most  debaters  are  born  under  the 
Ram,  and  so  are  r^»?bunctious  people." 

We  warmly  praised  the  elegant  learning 
of  the  astrologer   and  so   he   went   on : 

"  Next,  then,  the  whole  heaven  comes 
under  the  dominion  of  the  Bull,  and  so  at 
that  season  kickers  are  produced  and  herds- 
men, and  men  who  know  how  to  browse  for 
a  living.  Under  the  Twins  are  born  those 
who  are  affinities  and  good  yoke-fellows, 
and  those  who  can  kill  two  birds  with  one 
stone.  I  myself  was  born  under  the  Crab, 
and  so  I  have  many  feet  to  stand  on,  and 
many  possessions  both  on  sea  and  land ;  for 
the  crab   squares  with  both :  and  that 's  the 


96       Trimalchio's  Dinner 

reason  why  I  placed  nothing  over  that  sign 
lest  I  should  obscure  my  own  horoscope. 
Under  the  Lion,  great  eaters  and  high- 
spirited  fellows  are  born ;  under  the  Virgin, 
women  and  runaway  slaves,  and  people  who 
are  controlled  by  others ;  under  the  Balance, 
butchers  and  dealers  in  ointment,  and  all 
those  who  sell  things  by  weight ;  under  the 
Scorpion,  poisoners  and  cut-throats;  under 
the  Archer,  cross-eyed  men  who  when  they 
look  out  of  the  window  see  up  the  chimney; 
under  Capricorn,  moody  chaps  who  have 
strength  given  them  in  proportion  to  their 
misfortunes ;  under  Aquarius,  innkeepers 
who  water  their  wines,  and  cabbage-heads ; 
under  the  Fish,  caterers  and  also  rhetoricians 
who  cater  to  our  ears.  Thus  the  orb  turns 
like  a  mill  and  always  brings  some  misfor- 
tune, because  at  every  moment  men  are 
either  being  born  or  else  are  dying.  But  as 
to  your  seeing  a  turf  in  the  middle  and  a 
honeycomb  on  the  turf,  I  had  a  reason  for 
that  arrangement.     For  Mother  Earth  is  in 


Trimalchio's  Dinner       97 

the  middle,  round  as  an  egg,  and  she  contains 
within  herself  all  sorts  of  good  things,  like  the 
honeycomb." 

"  Learnedly  expounded !  "  we  all  cried  out ; 
and  lifting  our  hands  toward  the  ceiling  we 
swore  that  the  astromomers  Hipparchus  and 
Aratus  were  not  to  be  compared  with  our 
host ;  and  we  kept  up  this  eulogy  until  the 
servants  came  and  hung  pieces  of  tapestry 
along  the  front  of  our  couches,  with  hunt- 
ing nets  embroidered  on  them  and  huntsmen 
armed  with  spears,  and  all  the  paraphernalia 
of  the  hunt.  We  hardly  knew  what  these 
preparations  foreboded,  when  outside  the 
dining-room  a  great  hubbub  began,  and,  lo 
and  behold.  Spartan  dogs  began  dashing 
around  the  table.  A  tray  followed  them  in 
which  was  set  a  boar  of  great  size  with  a 
liberty-cap  above  him,  while  there  hung 
from  his  tusks  two  little  palm-leaf  baskets, 
one  full  of  nut-shaped  dates,  and  the  other 
full  of  Theban  dates.  All  around  were  little 
pigs  made  of  pastry  and  intent  on  the  breasts. 


98       Trimalchio's  Dinner 

this  signifying  that  the  boar  was  supposed  to 
represent  a  sow.  These  were  intended  for 
keepsakes  to  carry  away. 

The  slave  called  Carver,  who  had  mangled 
the  capons,  did  not  come  in  to  cut  up  the 
boar ;  but  instead,  a  big  fellow  with  a  beard, 
wearing  leggings  and  with  a  light  cloak  on 
his  shoulders,  slashed  the  side  of  the  boar 
vigorously  with  a  drawn  hunting-knife,  till 
out  of  the  gash  live  thrushes  flew  forth. 
Bird-catchers  were  at  hand  with  long  rods, 
and  they  caught  the  birds  very  quickly  as 
they  were  fluttering  around  the  dining-room. 
After  Trimalchio  had  ordered  a  bird  to  be 
given  to  each  guest,  he  added  : 

"  Just  see  what  a  fine  big  acorn  this  wild 
boar  had  eaten  !  " 

Directly  after,  the  slaves  went  to  the  little 
baskets  which  hung  from  the  boar's  tusks, 
and  distributed  the  dates  among  the  guests 
to  the  accompaniment  of  music. 

Meanwhile  I  in  my  remote  corner  was 
much  distracted  in  mind  as  to  why  the  boar 


Trimalchio's  Dinner       99 

had  come  in  with  a  liberty-cap  set  upon 
him ;  so  after  I  had  eaten  up  all  my  sweet- 
meats, I  resolved  to  question  my  informant. 

"  Oh,"  said  he,  "  the  slave  here  waiting  on 
you  can  easily  tell  you  that,  for  it  is  n't  a 
puzzle  but  a  perfectly  obvious  thing.  This 
boar  was  brought  on  in  the  last  course  of 
yesterday's  dinner,  and  was  allowed  by  the 
guests  to  go  untouched.  So,  you  see,  he 
comes  back  to-day  to  dinner  like  a  freedman." 

I  fell  to  cursing  my  own  stupidity,  and 
asked  no  more  questions  lest  I  should  appear 
never  to  have  dined  among  gentlemen  before. 

While  we  were  having  this  talk,  a  hand- 
some young  slave  crowned  with  ivies  and 
taking  the  part  of  Bacchus,  the  Free  Father, 
passed  grapes  about  in  a  basket  and  rendered 
his  master's  poems  in  a  very  shrill  voice. 
Trimalchio  turning  in  his  direction  said : 

"  Dionysus,  I  give  you  your  freedom." 

The  slave  at  once  took  the  liberty-cap  off 
the  boar  and  set  it  on  his  own  head,  upon 
which  Trimalchio  inquired  of  us  all  — 


lOO     Trimalchio's  Dinner 

"  Why  am  I  of  honourable  birth  ?  Be- 
cause I  have  a  Free  Father." 

We  all  commended  this  witty  saying, 
and  as  the  slave  went  around  the  table  we 
kissed  him  warmly  by  way  of  congratulation. 

After  this  course,  Trimalchio  got  up  to  go 
to  the  lavatory  ;  so  that,  feeling  a  certain 
freedom  in  the  absence  of  our  master,  we 
began  to  draw  each  other  into  conversa- 
tion. Dama,  first  of  all,  calling  for  a  goblet, 
remarked : 

"  A  day  is  nothing.  Night  comes  before 
you  can  turn  around.  That 's  why  I  think 
there  's  nothing  better  than  to  go  from  your 
bed  straight  to  the  dining-room.  It 's  a  cold 
climate  we  have  here.  Even  a  bath  scarcely 
warms  me  up.  In  fact,  a  hot  drink  is  my 
wardrobe.  I  've  had  several  stiff  drinks 
already,  so  that  I  'm  loaded  for  bear  ;  for  the 
wine  has  gone  to  my  head." 

At  this  point  Seleucus  interrupted  him, 
remarking,  — 

"  Well,  for  my  part,  /  don't  take  a  bath 


Roman   Cookshop. 


Trimalchio's  Dinner     loi 

every  day.  The  cold  water  nips  you  so  that 
when  you  bathe  every  day  your  courage  all 
oozes  out  of  you.  But  after  I  've  swigged  a 
toby  of  booze,  I  tell  the  cold  to  go  to  the 
devil.  But  I  could  n't  take  a  bath  to-day, 
anyhow,  for  I  was  to  a  funeral.  Chrysan- 
thus,  a  fine  man  and  such  a  good  fellow, 
kicked  the  bucket.  I  saw  him  only  the 
other  day,  —  in  fact,  I  can  hear  him  talking 
to  me  now.  Dear  me !  we  go  around  like 
blown-up  bladders.  We  're  of  less  conse- 
quence than  even  the  flies,  for  flies  have  some 
spirit  in  them,  while  we  are  nothing  but  mere 
bubbles.  But  as  to  Chrysanthus,  what  if  he 
was  n't  a  total  abstainer  ?  Anyhow,  for  five 
days  before  he  died,  he  never  threw  a  drink  in 
his  face  nor  ate  a  crumb  of  bread.  Well, 
well,  he's  joined  the  majority.  It  was  the 
doctors  that  really  killed  him  or  perhaps 
just  his  bad  luck  ;  for  a  doctor  is  nothing 
after  all  but  a  sort  of  consolation  to  your 
mind.  He  was  laid  out  in  great  style  on 
his  best  bed,  with  his  best  bedclothes  on. 


I02     Trimalchio's  Dinner 

and  he  had  a  splendid  wake,  though  his  wife 
was  n't  sincere  in  her  mourning  for  him.  But 
I  say,  what  if  he  did  n't  treat  her  very  well  ? 
A  woman  so  far  as  she  is  a  woman  is  a  regu- 
lar bird  of  prey.  It  is  n't  worth  while  to  do 
a  favour  for  a  woman,  because  it 's  just  the 
same  as  though  you  'd  chucked  it  down  a 
well.  But  love  in  time  becomes  a  regular 
ball-and-chain  on  a  man." 
I  He  was  getting  to  be  rather  boresome 
when  Phileros  chimed  in  : 

"Oh,  let's  think  of  the  living.  Your 
friend  has  got  whatever  was  his  due.  He 
lived  an  honourable  life  and  he  died  an 
honourable  death.  What  has  he  to  com- 
plain of.''  From  having  nothing,  he  made  a 
fortune,  for  he  was  always  ready  to  pull  a 
piece  of  money  out  of  a  muck-heap  with 
his  teeth ;  and  so  he  grew  as  rich  as  a  honey- 
comb. By  Jove  !  I  believe  the  fellow  left 
a  cool  hundred  thousand,  and  he  had  it  all 
in  cash.  I  'm  giving  you  this  straight,  for  I 
have  a  rough  tongue.     He  was  a  man  of 


Trimalchio's  Dinner     103 

unlimited  cheek,  a  tonguey  fellow,  and  he 
always  had  a  chip  on  his  shoulder.  His 
brother  was  a  good  sort  of  chap,  a  friend  to 
a  friend,  a  man  with  an  open  hand  and  a 
generous  table.  At  the  start  he  had  a  hard 
road  to  hoe,  but  his  first  vintage  set  him  on 
his  legs  again,  for  he  sold  his  wine  at  his 
own  price.  But  what  especially  kept  his 
head  above  water  was  this,  that  he  got  hold 
of  a  legacy,  and  waltzed  into  a  good  deal 
more  of  it  than  had  been  really  left  him.  But 
this  friend  of  yours,  because  he  had  quar- 
relled with  his  brother,  left  his  fortune  to 
some  outsider.  I  tell  you  a  man  has  to  go 
mighty  far  to  get  away  from  his  relatives  ! 
Unfortunately  he  had  slaves  who  blabbed  all 
his  secrets  and  harmed  him.  A  man  makes 
a  mistake  who  trusts  others  too  readily, 
especially  if  he  's  a  business  man.  Never- 
theless, while  he  lived,  he  enjoyed  what  he 
had  ;  and,  after  all,  he  is  the  luckiest  man  who 
has  things  given  to  him  and  not  merely 
promised  to  him.     He  was  really  Fortune's 


I04    Trimalchio's  Dinner 

favourite,  for  in  his  hand  even  lead  turned 
to  gold.  Of  course  that 's  easy  enough  when 
your  affairs  run  on  all-fours.  How  old 
do  you  think  he  was  when  he  died  ?  Why, 
he  was  over  seventy  ;  but  he  was  hard  as 
nails,  he  bore  his  years  well,  and  his  head 
was  as  black  as  a  crow.  I  knew  the  fellow  ; 
he  was  a  gay  bird,  —  ready  to  play  Jack  to 
any  woman's  Jill.  But  I  don't  blame  him, 
for  that 's  the  only  thing  that  he 's  been  able 
to  take  away  with  him." 

After  Phileros  had  finished,  Ganymedes 
started  in : 

"  All  this  talk  of  yours  is  n't  the  least  bit 
to  the  point.  No  one  here  seems  to  care 
about  the  high  price  of  grain.  By  Jove,  I 
could  n't  get  a  mouthful  of  bread  to-day  ! 
And  how  the  drought  keeps  on  !  We  've 
had  a  sort  of  famine  for  a  year.  Confound 
the  officials  anyhow,  who  are  standing  in 
with  the  bakers !  *  Scratch  my  back,  and 
I  '11  scratch  yours,'  as  the  saying  goes.  So 
the  public  has  to  suffer  for  it  and  their  jaws 


Trimalchio's  Dinner     105 

get  a  long  vacation.  Oh,  if  we  only  had 
those  roaring  blades  that  I  found  here 
when  I  first  arrived  from  Asia  !  I  tell  you, 
that  was  life  !  If  the  flour  sold  was  n't  equal 
to  the  very  best,  they  used  to  go  for  those 
poor  devil  officials  as  if  Jupiter  himself 
was  angry  with  them.  I  remember  Safinius. 
In  those  days  he  used  to  live  down  by  the 
old  archway,  when  I  was  a  boy.  He  was 
hot  stuff!  Wherever  he  went  he  used  to 
make  the  ground  smoke.  But  he  was  per- 
fectly straight,  a  man  to  rely  on,  a  friend 
to  a  friend,  a  chap  with  whom  you  could 
safely  throw  dice  with  your  eyes  shut.  In 
the  court-room  too,  how  he  used  to  make 
things  hum !  And  he  did  n't  talk  in  figures 
either,  but  straight  to  the  point,  and 
when  he  was  arguing  his  voice  used  to 
swell  like  a  trumpet.  He  never  used  to 
hem  and  haw,  and  I  think  he  had  a  touch 
of  the  Asiatic  about  him,  —  he  was  so  fluent. 
How  afi^able  he  was,  bowing  to  everybody, 
and    calling    everybody    by    name    just   as 


Nl/ 


1 06     Trimalchio's  Dinner 

though  he  was  one  of  us  !  In  those  days, 
I  tell  you,  grain  was  as  cheap  as  dirt.  If 
you  bought  a  loaf  of  bread  for  a  penny,  you 
could  n't  eat  it  up  even  if  you  hired  an- 
other man  to  help  you ;  whereas  nowadays, 
I  've  seen  bulls'-eyes  that  were  bigger  than 
the  loaves.  Dear,  dear,  every  day  things 
are  getting  worse !  The  town  is  growing 
backward  like  a  calf's  tail.  And  why  do  we 
have  a  mayor  who 's  no  good  and  who  thinks 
more  of  a  penny  piece  than  of  the  lives 
of  all  of  us?  He  has  a  soft  snap  in  private, 
for  he  takes  in  more  money  in  a  day  than 
most  of  us  have  in  our  whole  fortunes.  / 
know  one  source  from  which  he  got  a  thou- 
sand gold  pieces.  If  we  had  any  spunk 
he  would  n't  be  so  stuck  on  himself.  But 
our  people  are  lions  in  private  and  foxes 
in  public.  '  As  far  as  I  'm  concerned,  I'  ve 
already  eaten  up  my  wardrobe,  and  if  this 
sort  of  a  harvest  keeps  on  I  '11  have  to  sell 
my  shanties.  What 's  going  to  happen  if 
neither   gods    nor   men    take    pity  on    this 


RoM-AX   Barber-shof 


Trimalchio's  Dinner     107 

place  ?  So  help  me  gracious,  I  think  that 
all  this  trouble  comes  from  the  gods,  for 
nowadays  nobody  believes  in  Heaven  and 
nobody  cares  a  straw  for  Jove ;  but  every 
man-jack  of  them  shuts  his  eyes  and  just 
keeps  thinking  about  his  own  affairs.  In 
the  good  old  days  the  married  women  used 
to  go  bare-footed  up  the  Sacred  Hill  with 
their  hair  down  their  backs,  and  with  pure 
souls  prayed  to  Jupiter  for  rain.  And  then 
it  used  to  rain  by  the  bucketful  —  or  if  it 
did  n't  then,  why,  it  never  did  ;  and  they  all 
came  back  like  drowned  rats.  That 's  why 
the  gods  are  stealthily  dogging  us  to-day. 
It's  because  we  have  n't  any  more  religion. 
The  fields  are  —  " 

"  Oh,  I  say,"  said  Echion,  the  rag  dealer, 
"  do  be  a  little  more  cheerful !  Sometimes 
it 's  one  way  and  sometimes  it 's  another,  as 
the  countryman  said  who  had  lost  a  spotted 
pig.  What  you  don't  get  to-day,  you  '11  get 
to-morrow ;  that 's  the  way  life  shogs  on. 
This  country  'd  be  all  right  enough  if  it  only 


io8     Trimalchio's  Dinner 

had  real  men.  To  be  sure,  it 's  in  trouble 
just  at  this  time,  but  it  is  n't  unique  in  that. 
We  ought  n't  to  be  too  finical,  for  Heaven 
is  just  as  near  to  one  place  as  to  another.  If 
you  lived  anywhere  else,  you  'd  be  saying  that 
the  pigs  were  walking  around  here  ready 
roasted.  I  tell  you,  we  're  going  to  have  a 
first-class  show  of  gladiators  on  the  next 
holiday,  to  last  for  three  days.  The  fighters 
are  not  professional  gladiators,  but  most  of 
them  freedmen.  My  friend  Titus,  who  is 
paying  for  the  thing,  is  a  generous,  high- 
spirited  fellow.  With  him  it 's  always  either 
one  thing  or  the  other,  and  something 
anyhow ;  and  I  know  this,  for  I  visit  at 
his  house,  and  he 's  not  a  changeable 
person.  He  's  going  to  provide  a  splendid 
bit  of  fighting  for  us  with  no  quarter 
given,  —  a  regular  slaughter-house,  so  that 
every  one  present  can  see  it.  And  he  has 
the  means  to  do  it,  too,  for  his  father,  who 
just  died,  left  him  thirty  million  sesterces, 
so   that  he  can    easily    blow    in    four  hun- 


Trimalchio's  Dinner     109 

dred  thousand  without  his  fortune's  feel- 
ing it,  and  he  '11  win  an  immortal  reputation 
by  it.  He 's  got  together  some  country- 
jays  and  a  woman  charioteer  and  Glyco's 
steward  who  was  found  to  be  on  too  inti- 
mate terms  with  his  master's  wife.  You 
will  see  a  great  popular  outbreak  between 
the  jealous  husbands  and  the  lovers,  for 
Glyco,  a  real  cad,  has  given  his  steward  to 
the  wild  beasts,  thereby  giving  himself  away. 
How  was  the  slave  to  blame  who  was  obliged 
to  do  what  he  did  ?  It  is  really  Glyco's 
slat  of  a  wife  who  deserves  to  be  tossed  by 
a  bull  ;  but  when  a  man  can't  beat  his  mule, 
he  whacks  the  saddle.  How  on  earth  did 
Glyco  ever  suppose  that  a  daughter  of 
Hermogenes  could  come  to  a  good 
end?  Why,  old  Hermogenes  would  steal 
the  pennies  off  a  dead  man's  eyes,  and  you 
know  that  like  begets  like.  The  fact  is, 
Glyco  has  fouled  his  own  nest,  and  as  long 
as  he  hves  he  will  have  the  disgrace  of  it, 
so  that  nothing  but  death  can  ever  take  it 


iio     Trimalchio's  Dinner 

away.  But  every  man  sins  to  his  own  hurt. 
I  have  a  sort  of  suspicion,  by  the  way,  that 
Mammaea  is  going  to  give  us  a  feast  with  a 
present  of  money  at  the  end  of  it.  If  he 
does,  he  '11  take  the  wind  out  of  Norbanus's 
sails  and  beat  him  hands  down.  For  the 
matter  of  that,  Norbanus  never  did  much 
for  us  anyhow.  When  he  gave  a  show  he 
brought  out  some  tupenny-ha'penny  gladi- 
ators so  feeble  that  if  you  'd  blown  on  them 
they  would  have  fallen  flat.  I  Ve  seen  far 
better  men  fed  to  the  wild  beasts.  His 
mounted  fighters  were  as  much  like  the  real 
thing  as  a  lot  of  dissolving  views ;  you  'd 
have  taken  them  for  barnyard  fowls.  One 
was  a  regular  dummy,  another  was  lame,  and 
the  third  was  as  good  as  dead  already,  for  he 
had  been  hamstrung.  There  was  one  fellow, 
though,  of  some  spunk,  a  Thracian,  but  even 
he  fought  only  to  order  in  a  mechanical 
sort  of  way.  In  fact,  all  of  them  afterwards 
were  soundly  flogged,  for  the  spectators  all 
called  out :  *  Beat  them  and  brand  them  !  * 


Gladiatorial   Contest. 


Trimalchio's  Dinner     1 1 1 

They  were  every  one  of  them  quitters.  Of 
course  Norbanus  would  probably  say,  'I  've 
given  you  an  entertainment  anyhow.'  Then 
I  should  answer,  *  Yes,  and  I  've  given  you 
my  applause.  Reckon  the  thing  up  and 
you  '11  see  that  I  've  given  you  more  than 
I  got  from  yoif.'  One  good  turn  de- 
serves another.  'Well,  Agamemnon,  you 
look  as  though  you  were  saying,  *  Why  is  this 
bore  babbling  ? '  Why,  simply  because  you, 
who  know  how  to  talk  book  talk,  won't 
speak  at  all.  You  don't  belong  to  our  set, 
and  so  you  make  fun  of  everything  a  poor 
man  says.  I  know  you  're  cracked  on 
account  of  your  learning,  but  what  good  is 
it  all  to  you  ?  «Some  day  I  '11  persuade  you 
to  come  out  to  my  country  place  and  look 
at  my  humble  dwelling.  We  '11  find  some- 
thing there  to  chew  on,  —  chickens  and  eggs, 
—  and  it  '11  be  rather  nice  there  even 
though  the  drought  this  year  has  burnt 
everything  brown.  Still,  we  '11  find  some- 
thing   to    fill    our   bellies    with.      My    little 


112     Trimalchio's  Dinner 

shaver  is  growing  up  to  be  a  pupil  of  yours. 
Already  he  can  say  his  table  of  four  times ; 
and  if  he  lives,  you  '11  find  him  a  very 
faithful  pupil,  for  when  he  has  any  time  to 
himself  he  never  takes  his  head  out  of  a 
book.  He 's  clever  and  has  good  stuff  in 
him,  though  he 's  crazy  after  pet  birds. 
I  've  already  killed  three  goldfinches  of  his 
and  told  him  that  the  weasel  ate  them  up; 
but  he  took  up  some  other  nonsense,  and 
just  now  he  *s  very  fond  of  painting.  He  *s 
just  given  Greek  the  go-by,  and  he's 
begun  to  take  hold  of  Latin  very  well,  even 
though  his  teacher  is  too  easy-going  and 
does  n't  stick  to  one  thing,  but  just  comes 
and  sets  him  a  lesson  to  learn,  and  never 
wants  to  take  any  pains  himself.  I  Ve  also 
another  tutor  for  him  who  does  n't  know 
very  much,  to  be  sure,  but  who  's  very  dili- 
gent and  teaches  more  than  he  understands 
himself  On  the  quarter-days  he  comes  to 
the  house  and  is  perfectly  satisfied  with  what- 
ever you  pay  him.     I  've  just  bought  the 


Trimalchio's  Dinner     113 

boy  some  law-books,  because  I  want  to  have 
him  get  a  little  snack  of  law  for  home  use, 
for  this  is  a  practical,  bread-and-butter  sub- 
ject. The  boy  has  really  pottered  over 
literature  long  enough,  and  if  he  does  n't 
care  about  it  in  the  end,  I  've  decided  to 
teach  him  a  trade,  —  either  the  barber's,  or 
the  auctioneer's,  or  else  the  lawyer's,  —  and 
then  nothing  but  death  can  take  it  from  him. 
That 's  why  I  say  to  him  every  day,  *  My 
dear  boy,  believe  me,  whatever  you  learn 
you  learn  for  your  own  good.  Just  look  at 
Phileros,  the  lawyer.  If  he  had  n't  learned 
law,  he  would  n't  be  able  to-day  to  keep  the 
wolf  from  the  door.  Why,  not  very  long 
ago  he  was  carrying  around  goods  for  sale 
on  his  back,  whereas  now,  he  matches  him- 
self even  against  Norbanus.*  Yes,  learning 
is  a  treasure  ;  but  still  a  trade  never 
dies." 

The  talk  was  passing  back  and  forth  in 
this  way  when  Trimalchio  returned,  and, 
after  wiping  his  forehead,  washed  his  hands  in 


114    Trimalchio's  Dinner 

perfumed  water.  Then,  after  a  moment  or 
two  of  delay,  he  said  : 

"  You  will  excuse  me,  my  friends,  but 
my  stomach  for  a  good  many  days  has  been 
out  of  sorts,  and  the  doctors  don't  know 
where  they  are  at.  However,  I  have  been 
helped  by  pomegranate  rind  and  a  mixture 
of  pitch  and  vinegar.  I  trust  that  my 
internal  economy  will  soon  feel  ashamed 
of  itself.  Moreover  there  is  a  rumbling  in 
my  stomach  so  that  you  would  imagine  it 
to  be  a  bull.  And  so  if  any  of  you  wish 
to  go  out  don't  be  bashful.  You  '11  find  all 
the  conveniences.  Flatulence  goes  to  the 
head  and  kicks  up  a  disturbance  all  through 
the  body.  I  know  of  a  good  many  persons 
who  have  died  because  they  were  too  modest 
to  speak  the  truth." 

We  thanked  him  for  his  kind  generosity 
and  concealed  our  laughter  by  taking  numer- 
ous drinks.  We  had  no  idea,  after  all  the 
rich  things  already  eaten,  that  we  had  n't  yet, 
as  they  say,  reached  the  top  of  the  hill ;  but 


^«: 


OJr 


Roman   Youth. 


Trimalchio's  Dinner     115 

now,  as  soon  as  the  table  had  been  cleared 
off  to  the  sound  of  music,  three  white  swine 
were  brought  into  the  dining-room,  deco- 
rated with  muzzles  and  little  bells.  The 
slave  who  announced  the  guests  said  that 
one  of  the  pigs  was  two  years  old,  another 
three  years  old,  and  a  third  already  six  years 
old.  I  thought  that  rope  dancers  were  com- 
ing in  and  that  the  pigs,  as  is  often  the  case 
in  the  side-shows,  were  going  to  perform  some 
remarkable  tricks.  But  Trimalchio,  putting 
an  end  to  our  suspense,  said : 

"  Which  of  these  pigs  would  you  like  to 
have  served  up  at  once  on  the  table  ? 
Country  cooks  can  prepare  a  fowl  or  a  piece 
of  beef  and  other  trifles  of  that  sort,  but  my 
cooks  are  accustomed  to  serve  up  whole 
calves  boiled !  " 

Immediately  he  had  the  cook  summoned ; 
and  not  waiting  for  us  to  make  a  choice,  he 
ordered  the  oldest  pig  to  be  slaughtered. 
Then  he  asked  the  slave  in  a  loud  voice : 

"  Which  of  my  slave-gangs  do  you  belong 
to?" 


ii6    Trimalchio's  Dinner 

"  The  fortieth,"  said  the  cook. 

"  Were  you  purchased  for  me,"  said  Tri- 
malchio  ;  "  or  born  on  my  estate  ?  " 

"  Neither,"  replied  the  cook.  "  I  was 
left  to  you  in  Pansa's  will." 

"  See  then,"  said  Trimalchio,  "  that  you 
set  the  pig  before  us  in  good  style.  If  you 
don't,  I  shall  have  you  transferred  to  the 
gang  of  running  footmen." 

So  the  cook,  after  receiving  this  hint  of 
his  master's  power,  led  the  pig  away  to  the 
kitchen.  Trimalchio,  looking  at  us  with  a 
genial  countenance,  then  remarked  : 

"  If  the  wine  does  n't  suit  you,  I  '11  have 
it  changed;  but  you  really  must  relish  it. 
Thank  God,  I  don't  have  to  buy  it ;  but 
everything  that  can  make  your  mouth 
water  is  now  produced  on  that  estate  of  mine 
just  outside  the  city,  which  I  myself  have 
not  yet  seen.  It  is  said  to  be  near  Tar- 
racina  and  Tarentum.  I  have  a  notion  to 
add  Sicily  to  my  estates,  so  that  when  I 
take  it  into  my  head  to  go  to  Africa,  I  can 


Trimalchio's  Dinner     117 

sail  between  my  own  possessions.  But  tell 
me,  Agamemnon,  what  rhetorical  debate  did 
you  take  part  in  to-day  ?  For  even  though 
I  don't  plead  cases  myself,  I  have,  neverthe- 
less, some  learning  for  home  use.  You  are 
not  to  suppose  that  I  think  little  of  study. 
I  have  two  libraries,  one  in  Greek  and  one 
in  Latin.  So  tell  me,  please,  the  subject  of 
your  debate." 

"  The  subject,"  said  Agamemnon,  "  is 
this,  —  *  A  poor  man  and  a  rich  man  were 
enemies  — '  " 

"  What  on  earth  is  a  poor  man  ? "  in- 
terrupted Trimalchio. 

"  Oh,  how  witty  !  "  cried  out  Agamemnon  ; 
and  he  went  on  to  explain  the  subject  of  his 
argument.  But  Trimalchio  at  once  inter- 
rupted him  again  and  said : 

"If  all  this  really  happened,  there  is  no 
question  to  debate.  If  it  did  n't  really 
happen,  then  there  is  nothing  in  it  at  all." 

We  received  these  and  other  sallies  of  his 
with  the  most  effusive  compliments. 


ii8     Trimalchio's  Dinner 

"  Tell  me,"  said  he,  "  my  dear  Agamem- 
non, do  you  remember  the  Twelve  Labours 
of  Hercules,  or  the  story  of  Ulysses,  and 
how  the  Cyclops  twisted  his  thumb  after  he 
had  been  turned  into  a  pig  ?  When  I  was 
a  boy  I  used  to  read  these  things  in 
Homer  ;  and  with  my  own  eyes  I  once  saw 
the  Sibyl  at  Cumae  hanging  in  a  great  jar, 
and  when  the  young  men  asked  her,  *  Sibyl, 
what  do  you  want  ? '  she  said,  '  I  want  to 
die.' " 

He  had  not  yet  finished  blowing,  when 
a  tray  was  placed  upon  the  table  containing 
an  immense  pig.  We  fell  to  wondering  at 
the  rapidity  with  which  it  had  been  cooked ; 
for  we  vowed  that  not  even  a  barnyard  fowl 
could  have  been  thoroughly  done  in  so 
short  a  time  ;  and  we  wondered  all  the  more 
because  the  pig  seemed  to  us  to  be  consider- 
ably larger  than  the  live  pig  had  appeared  to 
be  a  little  while  before.  Then  Trimalchio 
looking  more  and  more  intently  at  it  said : 

"  What  ?    What  ?    Has  n't   this  pig  been 


Trimalchio's  Dinner     119 

drawn  ?  No,  by  Jove,  it  has  n't  !  Just  call 
the  cook  in." 

Then  when  the  cook,  looking  very  much 
disconcerted,  came  to  the  table  and  admitted 
that  he  had  forgotten  to  draw  the  pig,  Tri- 
malchio  called  out,  — 

"What?  Forgotten?  One  would  imagine 
that  this  fellow  had  never  handled  pepper 
and  salt.     Strip  him  !  " 

Immediately  the  cook  was  stripped  of  his 
outer  garments,  and  took  his  place  in  a  de- 
jected way  between  two  slaves  whose  duty  it 
was  to  administer  a  flogging.  All  the  guests 
began  to  beg  him  off  and  said,  — 

"  This  sort  of  thing  often  happens.  We 
beg  you,  let  him  off,  and  if  he  should 
ever  do  it  again,  none  of  us  will  plead  for 
him."  I 

I,  however,  being  a  man  of  unflinching 
sternness,  could  not  restrain  myself,  but 
putting  my  mouth  to  Agamemnon's  ear, 
said,  — 

"  Really,  this  must  be  a  most  worthless 


I20     Trimalchio's  Dinner 

slave.  Could  any  one  really  forget  to  draw 
a  pig  ?  By  Jove,  I  would  n't  forgive  him  if 
he  had  forgotten  to  clean  even  a  fish." 

But  not  so  Trimalchio,  whose  countenance 
relaxed  into  a  genial  expression  as  he  said,  — 

"  Well,  since  your  memory  is  so  bad,  just 
draw  him  here  in  our  presence." 

So  the  cook  put  on  his  tunic  and,  seizing 
his  knife,  cut  into  the  pig's  stomach  this  way 
and  that  way  with  a  careful  hand.  Instantly, 
after  the  cuts  had  been  made  and  by  reason 
of  the  pressure  from  within,  sausages  of 
various  kinds  came  tumbling  out.  The 
whole  company  broke  out  into  spontaneous 
applause  and  called  out : 

"  Good  for  Gaius  !  " 

The  cook  was  rewarded  with  a  drink,  a 
silver  crown,  and  a  cup  on  a  salver  of  Cor- 
inthian bronze.  As  Agamemnon  began  to 
examine  this  salver  very  closely,  Trimalchio 
remarked : 

"  I  'm  the  only  person  who  has  genuine 
Corinthian  bronze." 


Trimalchio's  Dinner     121 

I  Imagined  that,  in  accordance  with  the 
rest  of  his  conceit,  he  was  going  to  say  that 
his  bronze  had  been  brought  to  him  from 
Corinth  ;  but  he  gave  the  thing  a  better  turn 
than  that  by  saying : 

"Perhaps  you  would  like  to  know  why 
I  'm  the  only  man  who  has  true  Corinthian 
bronze.  Well,  it 's  because  the  bronze- 
dealer  from  whom  I  buy  it  is  called  Corin- 
thus  ;  for  how  can  anything  be  Corinthian 
unless  one  has  a  Corinthus  to  make  it  ? 
And  lest  you  imagine  that  I  'm  an  ignorant 
person,  I  '11  let  you  know  that  I  under- 
stand how  Corinthian  bronze  first  came  to 
be  made.  When  Troy  was  taken,  Hannibal, 
a  clever  fellow,  and  a  sly  dog,  had  all  the 
bronze  and  gold  and  silver  statues  heaped 
up  into  one  pile  and  built  a  fire  under  them. 
The  various  metals  all  melted  down  into  a 
single  one,  and  then  from  the  blended  mass 
the  artisans  took  metal  and  made  dishes,  and 
plates,  and  statuettes.  That  's  the  way  that 
Corinthian  bronze  was  first  produced,  —  a 


12  2    Trimalchio's  Dinner 

single  metal  made  out  of  all  the  others  and 
itself  neither  one  nor  the  other.  You  will 
excuse  me  for  what  I  am  going  to  say,  but 
for  my  part  I  prefer  vessels  of  glass,  for  they 
have  no  smell  to  them.  Indeed,  if  they 
could  n't  be  broken,  I  should  prefer  them 
even  to  gold.  But  now,  of  course,  they  're 
cheap.  Nevertheless,  there  once  lived  an 
artisan  who  made  a  glass  bottle  that  could  n't 
possibly  be  broken.  He  gained  admission  to 
the  emperor's  presence  with  his  invention ;  and 
making  as  if  to  hand  it  over  to  Caesar,  he  let 
it  fall  on  the  stone  floor.  Caesar  naturally 
supposed  that  it  had  been  broken,  but  the 
artisan  picked  up  the  bottle  from  the  floor, 
and,  lo  and  behold,  it  was  simply  dented  like 
a  vessel  of  bronze.  Then,  taking  a  little 
hammer  from  his  pocket,  he  straightened  the 
bottle  out  with  perfect  ease.  He  naturally 
thought  that  he  had  made  a  great  hit,  espe- 
cially after  Caesar  asked  him,  — 

"  '  Does  any  one  else  understand  this  man- 
ner of  making  glass  ? ' 


Trimalchio's  Dinner     123 

"  Listen  now :  when  the  workman  had 
said  no,  Caesar  ordered  him  to  be  beheaded, 
because  if  the  secret  of  this  manufacture 
should  leak  out,  gold  would  becomes  as 
cheap  as  dirt.  I  'm  a  good  deal  of  a  con- 
noisseur in  silver.  I  have  a  hundred  large 
goblets,  more  or  less,  made  of  that  metal, 
on  which  Cassandra  is  represented  as  killing 
her  sons,  and  the  dead  boys  are  depicted  so 
vividly  that  you  would  think  they  were 
alive.  I  have  also  a  thousand  sacrificial 
bowls  which  Mummius  left  to  my  former 
owner,  and  on  which  is  shown  Daedalus 
shutting  up  Niobe  in  the  Trojan  Horse.  I 
have,  too,  the  battles  of  Hermeros  and  of 
Petrais  depicted  on  drinking-cups,  all  of 
them  very  heavy.  In  fact,  I  would  n't  sell 
my  special  knowledge  for  any  money." 

While  he  was  saying  this,  a  boy  let  a  cup 
fall  on  the  floor.  Looking  at  him  Tri- 
malchio  said : 

"  Be  off  quickly  and  commit  suicide,  for 
you  're  a  fool  !  " 


I  24     Trimalchio's  Dinner 

Immediately  the  boy,  with  quivering  lip, 
began  to  beg.     Trimalchio  asked  : 

"  Why  do  you  beg  of  me  as  though  / 
had  done  anything  to  you  ?  I  advise  you  to 
beg  of  yourself  not  to  be  such  a  fool." 

At  length,  however,  persuaded  by  us,  he 
let  off  the  boy,  who  at  once  ran  about  the 
table,  while  Trimalchio  exclaimed,  — 

"  Out  with  the  water  and  in  with  the 
wme  ! 

We  applauded  his  witty  geniality,  and 
especially  did  Agamemnon  applaud  it,  for 
he  knew  by  what  sort  of  services  he  would 
get  another  invitation  to  dinner.  Trimal- 
chio, after  having  been  duly  flattered,  fell  to 
drinking  merrily,  and  now  being  nearly 
drunk,  he  said : 

"  Are  n't  any  of  you  going  to  ask  my 
Fortunata  to  dance  for  you  ?  Believe  me, 
no  one  can  do  the  coochee-coochee  better  than 
she." 

And  spreading  his  hands  above  his  head, 
he    gave    us    an    imitation    of    Syrus,    the 


Trimalchio's  Dinner     125 

actor,    while    all     his    slaves    droned    out 
together,  — 

«  Well  done,  by  Jove  !  Well  done  !  " 
In  fact  he  would  have  stood  forth  in  the 
midst  of  us  to  give  his  exhibition,  had  not 
Fortunata  said  something  in  his  ear,  and,  as 
I  imagine,  reminded  him  that  such  trifling 
follies  did  not  befit  his  dignity.  He  was 
really  very  inconsistent ;  for  at  one  moment 
he  seemed  to  be  in  awe  of  Fortunata,  and  at 
another  moment  to  revert  to  his  own  natural 
ways.  Presently,  however,  the  keeper  of  his 
official  records  checked  Trimalchio's  desire 
for  dancing  by  coming  in  and  reading  these 
records  aloud  as  though  they  were  the 
annals  of  the  city. 

"  July  26th :  on  the  estate  at  Cumas 
which  appertains  to  Trimalchio,  born  thirty 
male  slaves  and  forty  female  slaves  ;  trans- 
ferred to  the  granary  from  the  threshing 
floor,  five  hundred  thousand  measures  of 
wheat;  broken  in,  five  hundred  oxen.  On 
the    aforesaid    day :    the    slave    Mithridates 


126    Trimalcliio's  Dinner 

suffered  crucifixion  as  having  in  conversation 
been  guilty  of  lese  majeste  against  our  master 
Gaius.  On  the  aforesaid  day  :  placed  in  the 
safe,  as  having  been  found  impossible  to  in- 
vest, one  hundred  thousand  sesterces.  On 
the  aforesaid  day  :  a  fire  took  place  in  the 
gardens  at  Pompeii,  originating  in  the  house 
of  the  steward  Nasta." 

"How?"  exclaimed  Trimalchio.  "When 
were  gardens  at  Pompeii  purchased  for 
me  r 

"  Last  year,"  replied  the  keeper  of  the 
records  ;  "  and  so  they  have  not  yet  been 
entered  upon  your  accounts." 

Trimalchio  grew  hot  with  anger. 

"  Unless  I  shall  be  informed  within  six 
months  of  any  estates  that  have  been  pur- 
chased for  me,"  cried  he,  "  I  forbid  them  to 
be  carried  to  my  account." 

Presently,  also,  there  were  read  aloud  the 
proclamations  of  Trimalchio's  agents,  and  the 
wills  of  his  rangers  by  which  Trimalchio 
received   no   legacy    but   a   very    eulogistic 


Trimalchio's  Dinner     127 

mention  ;  and  there  were  further  read  the 
names  of  his  stewards,  and  how  a  freed- 
woman  who  had  been  caught  with  a  bath- 
ing attendant  had  been  divorced  by  her 
husband,  the  watchman ;  and  how  a  jan- 
itor had  been  exiled  to  Baias ;  and  how  a 
steward  had  been  put  on  trial ;  and  how  a 
judgment  had  been  rendered  with  regard  to 
the  chamberlains. 

After  this,  acrobats  were  introduced.  A 
most  uninteresting  performer  took  his  stand 
by  a  ladder  and  caused  a  boy  to  mount  the 
rungs  and  to  do  a  song-and-dance  on  the  top 
one,  after  which  he  leaped  through  blazing 
hoops  holding  a  wine  jar  in  his  teeth.  Tri- 
malchio  was  the  only  one  of  the  company 
who  admired  these  feats ;  and  he  remarked 
that  it  was  a  thankless  occupation,  but  that 
there  were  just  two  things  in  the  world  that 
gave  him  the  very  greatest  pleasure  to 
witness,  —  acrobats  and  quail-fights, — while 
all  other  diversions  were  idle  follies. 

"  I   myself  purchased,"    he    said,  "  some 


128    Trimalchio's  Dinner 

slaves  who  were  good  actors  of  Greek 
comedies  ;  but  I  prefer  to  have  them  take 
part  in  Latin  plays,  and  I  have  given  in- 
structions to  my  Greek  flute-player  to  per- 
form only  Latin  music." 

At  the  moment  that  he  was  saying  this, 
the  performing  boy  fell  from  above  and 
struck  Trimalchio  on  the  neck.  Both 
slaves  and  guests  cried  out,  not  for  the  sake 
of  their  absurd  host  whose  neck  they  would 
gladly  have  seen  broken,  but  because  the 
accident  seemed  to  involve  an  unfortunate 
ending  to  the  dinner  and  to  make  it  neces- 
sary for  them  to  lament  a  death.  After 
Trimalchio  himself  had  groaned  deeply  and 
had  bent  himself  double  over  his  arm  as 
though  it  had  been  injured,  his  medical 
attendants  rushed  in  ;  and  Fortunata  especi- 
ally, with  dishevelled  hair  and  carrying  a 
pitcher  in  her  hand,  declared  herself  the 
most  unhappy  and  unfortunate  of  women. 
The  boy  who  had  fallen  went  about  and, 
kneeling  at    our   feet,  begged    forgiveness. 


Interior   of  Roman   House. 


Trimalchio's  Dinner    129 

What  struck  me  most  unpleasantly  was 
the  thought,  in  the  midst  of  his  prayers,  that 
some  absurd  proceeding  was  intended  at  the 
critical  moment ;  for  I  had  still  a  lively 
recollection  of  the  cook  who  had  forgotten 
to  draw  the  pig.  And  so  I  began  to  let  my 
glance  rove  over  the  dining-room  lest  some 
automaton  should  come  through  the  wall ; 
and  my  suspicion  was  enhanced  after  I 
noticed  one  of  the  slaves  get  a  beating  for 
wrapping  up  his  master's  injured  arm  with 
plain  white,  rather  than  with  purple-dyed, 
wool.  Nor  was  I  very  far  astray ;  for,  in 
place  of  punishment,  Trimalchio  issued  an 
order  that  the  boy  should  immediately  re- 
ceive his  freedom  lest  any  one  should  after- 
wards be  able  to  say  that  so  great  a  man  as 
Trimalchio  had  been  injured  by  a  slave. 

We  admired  this  act  of  his,  and  then 
began  chattering  on  the  subject  of  the  muta- 
bility of  human  fortune. 

"  Really,"  said  Trimalchio,  "  we  must  not 
let  this  accident  pass  without  an  epigram." 
9 


130    Trimalchio's  Dinner 

And  immediately  he  called  for  tablets, 
and  after  racking  his  brains  for  a  little  while, 
read  us  out  the  following  lines : 

*'  What  you  expect  turns  out  some  other  way. 
For  Chance  it  is  that  rules  us  day  by  day. 
Then  fill  the  cup,  my  boy,  and  let  's  be  gay!  " 

This  epigram  of  his  led  us  to  mention 
the  poets ;  and  for  some  time  perfection 
in  poetry  was  ascribed  to  Mopsus,  the 
Thracian,  until  Trimalchio  observed : 

"  Tell  me,  Agamemnon,  wherein  do  you 
find  the  chief  distinction  between  Cicero  and 
the  comic  writer,  Publilius  Syrus  ?  For  my 
part  I  think  that  Cicero  was  more  elegant 
and  Publilius  more  noble.  Can  anything  be 
better  than  these  lines  ? 

**  *  The  walls  of  Rome  are  crumbling  to  decay. 
Fated  to  fall  while  Luxury  holds  sway. 
The  gorgeous  peacock,  tipped  with  feathery  gold, 
Now  for  thy  palate  must  be  bred  and  sold  ; 
The  pheasant  also  and  the  capon  rare  — 
Are  all  for  thee  who  knowest  naught  to  spare. 
E'en  the  poor  stork,  that  welcome  foreign  guest. 
Must  in  thy  kettle  build  its  final  nest,  — 


Trimalchio's  Dinner     131 

Haunter  of  temples,  graceful  on  the  wing. 
Exile  of  winter,  harbinger  of  spring. 

'*  *  Why  dost  thou  make  the  Indian  pearl  thy  care  ? 
Is  it  alone  for  modest  maids  to  wear  ? 
Lustrous  it  gleams  upon  the  matron's  head. 
While  she  goes  shameless  to  a  stranger's  bed. 
Why  dost  thou  prize  the  emerald's  vivid  green  ? 
Canst  thou  learn  Virtue  from  its  lucent  sheen  ? 
Why  dost  thou  seek  the  ruby's  worth  to  know  ? 
Does  Honour  sparkle  in  its  fiery  glow  ? 

**  *  Nay,  the  young  bride,  of  stainless  race  and  proud. 
Clothed  like  a  harlot  in  a  flaxen  cloud 
Or  woven  wind,  goes  forth  with  sullied  name. 
Bold-eyed  to  tread  the  path  of  public  shame  !  * 

"  What  are  we  to  suppose,"  said  he, 
"  next  to  literature,  to  be  the  most  difficult 
trade  ?  /  think  the  doctor's  trade  and  the 
money-changer's.  The  doctor's,  because  he 
knows  what  we  poor  mortals  have  in  our 
insides,  and  when  a  fever  is  going  to  come 
on.  To  be  sure,  I  hate  doctors  awfully 
myself,  because  they  so  often  put  me  on  a 
diet  of  duck's  meat.  And  I  think  the 
money-changer's  trade  is  difficult,  because  he 


132     Trimalchio's  Dinner 

has  to  look  through  silver  and  see  the  brass 
underneath.  The  most  painstaking  of  the 
dumb  beasts  are  oxen  and  sheep,  —  the  oxen, 
through  whose  kindly  toil  we  have  bread  to 
eat,  and  the  sheep  because  by  their  wool  they 
clothe  us  so  splendidly.  It 's  really  a  great 
shame  that  any  one  ever  eats  mutton  and 
wears  a  coat.  As  for  bees,  I  think  that  these 
creatures  are  really  divine,  because  they  can 
spit  up  honey,  although  the  general  opinion 
is  that  honey  is  given  them  by  Jupiter ;  and 
they  have  a  sting  because,  according  to  the 
saying,  *  There  's  no  rose  without  thorns.'  " 

My  friend  Ascyltos,  a  fellow  who  never 
restrains  himself,  made  fun  of  all  this  pros- 
ing, stretching  out  his  hands  and  laughing 
until  he  cried,  whereupon  one  of  Trimal- 
chio's  fellow  freedmen,  who  was  placed  next 
to  me,  grew  very  angry  and  called  out, — 

"  What  are  you  laughing  at,  you  mutton 
head?  Doesn't  his  honour's  elegant  style 
satisfy  you  ?  I  suppose  you  are  richer  than 
he   and   are    accustomed  to    dine  in    better 


Trimalchio's  Dinner     133 

style  !  So  help  me  Heaven,  if  I  were  next 
to  this  fellow  I  'd  have  stopped  his  blatting 
long  ago.  He  's  a  daisy,  is  n't  he,  to  be 
laughing  at  other  men,  this  tramp,  this 
fly-by-night,  who  is  n't  worth  his  salt ! 
I  'm  not  accustomed  to  get  angry  easily, 
but  in  tender  meat  maggots  are  easily  pro- 
duced. He  's  laughing,  is  he  ?  What  has 
he  got  to  laugh  at  ?  He  is  n't  so  preci- 
ous, is  he,  that  his  father  had  to  buy 
him  for  money  ?  Oh  yes,  you  're  a  Roman 
knight !  Well,  I  'm  the  son  of  a  king.  I 
suppose  you  ask,  then,  why  I  was  ever  a 
slave.  I  '11  tell  you.  I  became  a  slave  of 
my  own  free  will  and  then  had  myself  set  free, 
because  I  preferred  to  be  a  Roman  citizen 
rather  than  a  tributary  king ;  and  now  I 
imagine  that  I  'm  living  such  a  life  as  to  be 
nobody's  fool.  I  'm  as  good  as  any  other 
man  and  I  go  about  with  my  head  in  the 
air.  I  don't  owe  any  one  a  red  cent.  I  've 
never  had  a  summons  served  on  me.  No 
one  has  ever  had  to  say  to  me  in  the  Forum, 


134    Trimalchio's  Dinner 

*Pay  up.'  I've  bought  a  little  ground, 
I  've  scraped  together  a  little  cash,  and  now 
I  keep  twenty  slaves  and  a  dog.  I  bought 
my  sweetheart's  freedom  too,  so  that  no  one 
should  have  the  right  to  wipe  his  hands  on 
her  head.  I  paid  a  thousand  denarii  for  her. 
I  was  made  a  commissioner  without  having 
to  buy  the  honour  ;  and  I  think  that  when  I 
come  to  die  I  '11  not  have  to  blush  for  myself 
after  I  'm  dead.  But  you  are  such  a  Paul 
Pry  that  you  don't  have  time  to  see  your  own 
faults.  You  see  a  mote  in  another  man's  eye, 
but  you  never  see  the  beam  in  your  own. 
You  're  the  one  and  only  person  to  whom  we 
seem  laughable.  Here 's  your  teacher,  a 
man  better  born  than  you,  and  we  are  quite 
good  enough  for  him.  You  great  baby  !  you 
have  n't  sense  enough  to  say  boo  to  a  goose 
—  a  cheap  creature,  a  regular  thong-in-water, 
softer  than  we  but  not  sounder.  You  're  very 
rich,  are  you  ?  Very  well,  can  you  eat  more 
meals  on  that  account  ?  I  regard  my  credit 
as  far  better  than  riches,  and  I  should  like  to 


Trimalchio's  Dinner    135 

know  whether  any  one  has  ever  had  to  dun  me 
for  his  money.  I  was  a  slave  for  forty  years, 
but  now  no  one  cares  whether  I  was  a  slave  or 
a  freeman.  I  came  to  this  town  when  I  was 
a  long-haired  boy,  before  the  town  hall  was 
built,  and  I  worked  diligently  to  please  my 
owner  who  was  a  very  majestical  and  digni- 
ferous  man.  His  little  finger  was  worth  more 
than  your  whole  body.  I  had  enemies  in  his 
house  who  tried  to  trip  me  up  now  and 
then;  but  nevertheless,  thanks  to  him,  I  came 
out  all  right  in  the  end.  These  things  are 
real  tests,  for  it 's  just  as  easy  to  be  born 
a  gentleman  as  it  is  to  say  Jack  Robinson. 
Well,  what  are  you  gaping  at  now  like  a  goat 
in  a  garden  ?  " 

At  this  outbreak,  Giton,  who  was  standing 
behind  us  and  who  had  for  a  long  time  been 
suppressing  his  laughter,  now  burst  into  a 
most  unbecoming  guffaw.  When  the  guest 
who  had  been  reviling  Ascyltos  noticed  this, 
he  directed  his  invective  upon  the  boy,  and 
called  out, — 


136    Trimalchio's  Dinner 

"  And  you  're  laughing,  too,  are  you,  you 
curly  onion  ?  Well,  I  should  like  to  know 
whether  it's  the  month  of  December  when 
the  slaves  are  allowed  to  do  as  they  please. 
When  werejyoz^  set  free  ?  What  have  you  got 
to  do  with  this  affair,  anyhow,  you  gallows 
bird,  —  you  food  for  crows  !  May  Jupiter 
confound  you  and  this  master  of  yours  who 
does  n't  restrain  you  !  May  I  never  have 
bread  to  eat  if  I  'm  not  really  repressing 
myself  out  of  regard  to  Trimalchio.  If  it 
had  n't  been  for  his  presence,  I  'd  have  given 
you  your  deserts  long  ago.  There  's  really 
nothing  the  matter  with  us^  but  only  with 
these  worthless  fools  here  who  don't  keep 
you  in  check.  The  old  saying  is  very  true, 
*  Like  master,  like  man.'  It's  hard  for  me 
to  control  my  feelings,  and  yet  I  'm  not 
naturally  hot-headed ;  only,  when  I  once  get 
started,  I  'd  throw  stones  at  my  grand- 
mother. All  right !  I  '11  see  you  outside,  you 
rat,  you  toadstool  !  May  I  never  grow 
another  inch  if  I  don't  knock  your  master 


;3 
o 


o 

a: 


Trimalchio's  Dinner     137 

into  a  cocked  hat ;  and  I  won't  let  up  on 
you,  either,  even  if  you  should  pray  to 
Olympian  Jove.  I  '11  knock  your  head  off 
and  your  worthless  master's  too.  Yes,  yes, 
I  '11  put  you  under  the  harrow.  Either  I 
don't  know  myself,  or  else  you  '11  have  to 
stop  laughing  at  us,  even  though  your  beard 
should  be  gilded  like  a  god's.  I  '11  do  you 
up  and  the  man  who  brought  you  here,  too. 
Maybe  I  don't  know  geometry  and  criticism 
and  all  those  senseless  follies,  but  I  can  read 
print  and  I  understand  fractions,  and  weights, 
and  coinage.  In  fact,  if  you  want  to,  I  '11 
make  a  little  bet  with  you  and  put  up  the 
money,  and  you  shall  find  out  that  your 
father  wasted  whatever  he  spent  on  making 
you  a  scholar.      I  say  this  to  you  : 

" '  What  do  you  want  of  me  ?     I   have  a  long 
reach  and  a  wide  sweep.     Mind  your  eye  ! ' 

That 's  what  I  say  to  you  when  you  go 
scurrying  around  and  yet  don  't  gain  an  inch. 
You    puff  yourself  up   and   yet   you   look 


138     Trimalchio's  Dinner 

meaner  and  meaner  all  the  time.  You  dart 
here  and  there,  you  gape,  you  bustle  about 
like  a  mouse  in  a  match-box,  so  you  'd  better 
shut  up  or  else  stop  annoying  a  man  who  is 
better  than  you  are  and  who  does  n't  take 
the  trouble  to  think  of  you.  Perhaps  you 
imagine  that  I  'm  impressed  by  those  wooden 
armlets  of  yours  which  you  swiped  from 
your  mistress  !  Just  let 's  go  to  the  Forum 
and  try  to  borrow  money,  and  then  you  '11 
find  out  that  my  name  has  some  value. 
Pah !  a  sick  chicken  like  you  is  a  fine  thing, 
is  n't  it  ?  May  I  never  make  another  cent, 
and  may  I  die  in  disgrace,  if  I  don't  run  you 
out  of  the  place  !  And  this  master  of  yours, 
who  puts  you  up  to  all  these  things,  he  's  a 
daisy,  is  n't  he  ?  He  's  more  of  a  mug  than 
a  master.  I  've  had  some  education  myself, 
for  my  teacher  used  to  say  to  me,  *  Is  every- 
thing all  right  ?  Straight  home  now.  See 
that  you  don't  go  staring  around  or  speaking 
disrespectfully  to  your  betters,  or  stop  and 
look  in  the  shop  windows !  *     No  second- 


Trimalchio's  Dinner    139 

rate  person  ever  graduated  from  that  school. 
I  thank  God  that  my  trade  has  made  me 
what  I  am." 

Ascyltos  was  starting  in  to  answer  this 
tirade  when  Trimalchio,  greatly  tickled  by 
his  friend's  flow  of  language,  said  : 

"Oh,  come!  stop  your  quarrelling  and 
let's  have  things  pleasant.  And  you,  Her- 
meros,  let  up  on  the  young  fellow.  He 's  hot- 
blooded,  but  you  ought  to  be  more  sensible. 
The  man  who  comes  off  best  in  this  sort  of 
thing  really  comes  oflF worst.  And  when  you 
were  a  young  rooster  you,  too,  used  to  crow 
away  and  had  n't  any  sense.  So  let 's  all  be 
happy  from  the  word  go,  which  is  much  more 
sensible,  and  listen  to  the  Homeric  actors." 

A  troupe  immediately  came  in,  clattering 
their  shields  and  spears.  Trimalchio  sat  up 
on  his  couch,  and  while  the  Homeric  actors 
in  a  pompous  fashion  began  a  dialogue  in 
Greek  verse,  he  read  a  book  aloud  in  Latin 
with  a  singsong  tone  of  voice.  Presently, 
when  the  rest  had  become  silent,  he  said: 


140    Trimalchio's  Dinner 

"  Do  you  know  what  play  they  're  acting  ? 
Diomede  and  Ganymede  were  two  brothers. 
Their  sister  was  Helen.  Agamemnon  carried 
her  off  and  put  a  deer  in  her  place  for  Diana, 
and  so  now  Homer  explains  how  the 
Trojans  and  the  Parentines  are  waging  war. 
Agamemnon,  you  must  know,  came  off  victor 
and  gave  his  daughter  Iphigenia  to  be  the 
wife  of  Achilles.  Thereupon  Ajax  went 
mad,  and  presently  now  will  show  us  the 
denouement  y 

As  Trimalchio  said  this,  the  Homeric 
actors  set  up  a  shout,  and  while  the  slaves 
bustled  about,  a  boiled  calf  was  brought  on 
in  an  enormous  dish  and  with  a  helmet  placed 
upon  it.  The  actor  who  took  the  part  of 
Ajax  followed  with  a  drawn  sword,  fell  upon 
it  as  though  he  were  mad,  and  hacking  this 
way  and  that  he  cut  up  the  calf  and  offered 
the  bits  to  us  on  the  point  of  his  sword,  to 
our  great  surprise. 

We  had  no  time  to  admire  these  elegant 
proceedings,  for  all  of  a  sudden  the  ceiling 


< 


o 


Trimalchio's  Dinner     141 

of  the  room  began  to  rumble  and  the  whole 
dining-room  shook.  In  consternation  I 
jumped  upj  fearing  lest  some  acrobat  should 
come  down  through  the  roof;  and  all  the 
other  guests  in  surprise  looked  upward  as 
though  they  expected  some  miracle  from 
heaven.  But  lo  and  behold !  the  panels  of 
the  ceiling  slid  apart,  and  suddenly  a  great 
hoop  as  though  shaken  off  from  a  hogshead 
was  let  down,  having  gold  crowns  with  jars 
of  perfume  hanging  about  its  entire  circum- 
ference. These  things  we  were  invited  to 
accept  as  keepsakes,  and  presently  a  tray 
was  set  before  us  full  of  cakes  with  an  image 
of  Priapus  as  a  centre-piece  made  of  con- 
fectionery and  holding  in  its  generous  bosom 
apples  of  every  sort  and  grapes,  in  the  usual 
fashion,  as  being  the  god  of  gardens.  We 
eagerly  snatched  at  this  magnificent  display, 
and  suddenly  renewed  our  mirth  at  discov- 
ering a  novel  trick ;  for  all  the  cakes  and 
all  the  apples,  when  pressed  the  least  bit, 
squirted  forth  saffron-water  into  our  faces. 


142     Trimalchio's  Dinner 

Thinking  that  there  was  something  of  a 
reHgious  turn  to  a  course  that  was  so  suggest- 
ive of  divine  worship,  we  all  rose  up  together 
and  pronounced  the  formula,  "  Success  to 
Augustus,  Father  of  his  Country  !  "  But 
some  of  us,  even  after  this  solemn  act, 
snatched  up  the  apples  and  filled  our  napkins 
with  them  to  carry  away,  —  a  thing  which 
I  did  myself,  for  I  thought  that  I  could 
not  heap  up  enough  presents  in  Giton's 
lap. 

While  this  was  going  on,  three  slaves 
dressed  in  white  tunics  entered,  two  of  whom 
placed  images  of  the  household  gods  upon 
the  table,  and  the  other  one  carrying  around 
a  bowl  of  wine  called  out :  "  God  bless  us 
all  ! "  Trimalchio  told  us  that  one  image 
was  the  image  of  the  God  of  Business,  the 
second  the  image  of  the  God  of  Luck,  and 
the  third  the  image  of  the  God  of  Gain. 
There  was  a  very  striking  bust  of  Trimalchio 
also,  and  as  everybody  else  kissed  it,  I  was 
ashamed  not  to  do  the  same. 


Trimalchio's  Dinner     143 

Presently,  after  all  of  us  had  Invoked 
health  and  happiness  for  ourselves,  Trimal- 
chio,  looking  in  the  direction  of  Niceros, 
said : 

"You  used  to  be  better  dinner-company. 
Somehow  or  other  now,  though,  you  're 
absolutely  mum  and  don't  open  your  head. 
I  beg  you,  if  you  wish  to  oblige  me,  tell  me 
some  of  your  experiences." 

Niceros,  flattered  by  the  notice  of  his  friend, 
said : 

"  May  I  never  make  another  farthing  if 
I  am  not  bursting  with  joy  to  see  you  in 
such  good  form ;  so  let 's  be  as  happy  as  we 
can,  though  I  am  awfully  afraid  of  these 
learned  persons  present  for  fear  they  should 
laugh  at  me.  However,  that 's  their  affair. 
I  '11  spin  my  yarn  all  the  same ;  for  what 
harm  does  any  one  do  me  who  laughs  at  me  ? 
It's  a  great  deal  better  to  be  laughed  at, 
than  to  be  laughed  down." 

And  then  he  began  the  following  story : 

"  When  I  was  still  a  slave  I  used  to  live 


144     Trimalchio's  Dinner 

in  a  little  street  where  Gavilla  lives  now.  At 
that  time,  as  the  gods  would  have  it,  I  fell 
in  love  with  the  wife  of  Terence,  the  inn- 
keeper. You  must  have  known  her,  —  her 
name  was  Melissa,  a  native  of  Tarentum, 
and  a  very  kissable  girl,  too.  Yet  there 
wasn't  anything  wrong  in  my  love  for  her, 
but  I  just  liked  her  because  she  had  such 
nice  ways.  "Whatever  I  asked  of  her  she 
gave  me.  If  she  made  a  penny  she  gave  me 
half  of  it,  and  whatever  I  had  I  turned  over 
to  her  to  keep  for  me,  and  never  was  cheated. 
As  it  happened,  her  husband  died  at  his 
place  in  the  country  and  so  I  tried  by  hook 
and  by  crook  to  get  to  her,  for  you  know  a 
friend  in  need  is  a  friend  indeed.  As  chance 
would  have  it,  my  master  had  gone  to  Capua 
to  look  after  some  wares  ;  and  so,  seizing  the 
opportunity,  I  asked  a  man  who  was  staying 
with  us  to  go  with  me  as  far  as  the  fifth  mile- 
stone. He  was  a  soldier,  as  bold  as  hell. 
We  set  off  about  cock-crow,  while  the  moon 
was  still  shining  as  bright  as  mid-day.     At 


Trimalchio's  Dinner     145 

last  we  came  to  a  cemetery  and  my  com- 
panion went  off  among  the  tombstones, 
while  I  took  a  rest,  humming  a  tune 
and  counting  the  monuments.  Presently, 
when  I  looked  at  my  companion,  he  had 
undressed  and  had  put  all  his  clothes  by  the 
roadside.  My  heart  was  in  my  mouth,  and 
I  sat  there  like  a  dead  man  ;  but  he  walked 
around  his  clothes  and  all  of  a  sudden  was 
turned  into  a  wolf.  Now  don't  imagine  that 
I  'm  fooling  you,  for  I  would  n't  tell  any  lies 
for  the  world.  But,  as  I  was  going  on  to  say 
just  now,  he  was  turned  into  a  wolf,  and  began 
to  howl,  and  then  ran  off  into  the  woods.  At 
first  I  did  n't  know  where  I  was  at,  but  when 
I  went  up  to  his  clothes  to  pick  them  up,  — 
lo  and  behold,  they  had  all  been  turned  into 
stone  !  Well,  I  was  about  ready  to  die  of 
fright,  but  I  drew  my  sword  and  all  along 
the  road  I  cut  and  thrust  at  every  shadow 
until  I  reached  my  friend's  house.  When  I 
entered  as  pale  as  a  ghost  I  almost  fainted. 
The  sweat  was  running  down  my  crotch,  my 


146     Trimalchio's  Dinner 

eyes  were  fixed,  and  it  was  with  the  greatest 
difficulty  that  I  was  brought  to.  Mehssa 
wondered  at  me  to  think  that  I  was  out  so 
late  and  she  said,  '  If  you  'd  only  come  sooner 
you  might  have  been  of  some  help  to  us; 
for  a  wolf  has  just  entered  the  grounds  and 
attacked  our  flocks  and  made  them  bleed 
like  a  butcher.  He  did  n't  get  off  unhurt, 
however,  for  one  of  my  slaves  stuck  him  in 
the  neck  with  a  spear.'  After  I  had  heard 
this  I  could  n't  close  my  eyes  ;  but  as  soon  as 
it  was  bright  daylight,  I  hurried  home  like  a 
plundered  pedlar ;  and  when  I  came  to  the 
place  where  the  clothes  had  been  turned  into 
stone  I  found  nothing  there  but  a  pool  of 
blood.  But  when  I  reached  home,  there  lay 
my  friend  the  soldier,  in  his  bed  like  a  stuck 
pig  with  the  doctor  putting  a  plaster  on  his 
neck.  Then  I  knew  that  he  was  a  were- 
wolf, and  from  that  day  on  I  could  n't  have 
eaten  a  mouthful  of  bread  with  him  even  if 
you  had  killed  me.  I  leave  it  to  others  to 
say  what  they  think  of  this  ;  but  if  I  *ve  lied 


Trimalchio's  Dinner    147 

to  you  I  hope  your  honours  will  have  noth- 
ing more  whatever  to  do  with  me." 

After  we  had  all  expressed  our  wonder, 
Trimalchio  remarked : 

"  If  you  '11  beHeve  me,  my  hair  stood  on 
end,  because  I  know  that  Niceros  never  tells 
any  idle  yarns,  but  he  's  a  straightforward 
fellow,  and  by  no  means  fond  of  hearing 
himself  talk.  Now  I  'm  going  to  tell  you  a 
frightful  thing  myself,  as  strange  as  an  ass 
on  the  house-tops.  When  I  was  still  a  long- 
haired boy  —  for  even  from  early  youth  I 
led  a  pretty  gay  life  —  my  master's  favourite 
died,  a  regular  jewel,  a  rare  fellow,  and  one 
that  could  turn  his  hand  to  anything.  His 
poor  mother  was  mourning  over  him  and  we 
were  all  of  us  in  a  very  sad  state  of  mind, 
when  suddenly  we  heard  witches  shrieking  so 
that  you  would  imagine  that  it  was  a  pack  of 
hounds  chasing  a  hare.  We  had  with  us 
at  that  time  a  Cappadocian,  a  tall  fellow, 
very  bold  and  so  strong  that  he  could  have 
picked  up  a  mad  bull.     He  drew  his  sword 


148     Trimalchio's  Dinner 

valiantly,  rushed  out  of  the  house,  and,  wrap^ 
ping  his  left  arm  carefully  in  his  cloak,  he 
thrust  a  hag  right  through  the  middle.  We 
heard  a  groan  yet,  (really,  I  'm  not  lying)  we 
could  n't  see  the  witches  themselves.  Pre- 
sently, however,  our  man  came  in  again 
and  threw  himself  down  on  the  bed,  and  — 
lo  and  behold,  his  body  was  all  black  and 
blue  as  though  it  had  been  scourged  because, 
no  doubt,  an  evil  hand  had  touched  him  1 
Closing  the  door,  we  went  on  about  our 
business,  but  when  the  mother  went  to  em- 
brace her  son's  body,  she  touched  it  and 
found  nothing  but  a  dummy  made  of  litter, 
with  no  heart,  no  vitals,  nothing  at  all.  So 
you  see  that  the  witches  had  swooped  down 
on  the  boy  and  put  a  puppet  in  his  place. 
Believe  me,  there  are  witches,  real  night  hags, 
and  they  turn  everything  upside  down.  But 
as  for  this  stout  fellow  of  ours,  after  what  had 
happened  he  never  came  to  himself  again, 
and  after  a  few  days  he  died  raving  crazy." 
We  all   expressed  alike  our  wonder  and 


o 


o 

a-, 


Trimalchio's  Dinner    149 

our  entire  belief,  and  we  touched  the  table 
with  our  lips,  begging  the  night  hags  to  stay 
in  their  own  haunts  when  the  time  came  for 
us  to  go  home  from  dinner.  Then  the 
lights  seemed  to  me  to  blaze  up  in  an  uncom- 
mon way  and  the  whole  dining-room  to  be 
transformed  in  appearance,  when  Trimalchio 
observed  : 

"  I  say,  Plocamus,  have  n't  you  anything 
to  tell  us  ?  Are  n't  you  going  to  contribute 
to  our  entertainment  ?  You  used  to  be  bet- 
ter company  and  ready  to  chat  delightfully, 
and  you  were  quite  ready  also  to  sing  a 
song.  Dear,  dear,  '  where  are  the  snows  of 
yester-year  ?  '  " 

"Well,"  said  Plocamus,  "my  sporting 
days  were  over  as  soon  as  I  had  the  gout. 
Before  that,  and  when  I  was  a  young  man, 
I  used  to  sing  so  much  that  I  almost  got 
consumption.  And  as  to  dancing  and  talk- 
ing and  gossiping,  I  never  met  my  match 
except  in  Apelles." 

And  putting  his  hands  up  to  his  mouth 


150     Trimalchio's  Dinner 

he  wheezed  forth  some  tiresome  thing  which 
he  afterwards  said  was  Greek. 

Trimalchio  himself  then  gave  us  an  imita- 
tion of  trumpet-blowing,  and  after  he  had 
finished  he  cast  his  eyes  on  his  favourite 
slave  whom  he  called  Croesus,  but  who  was, 
in  fact,  a  blear-eyed  fellow  with  discoloured 
teeth,  and  at  this  moment  occupied  with 
a  small  dog,  black  and  disagreeably  fat. 
This  beast  he  was  rolling  on  the  couch  in  a 
green  rug  and  was  stuffing  him  with  a  great 
hunk  of  bread  until  the  animal  refused  to 
swallow  another  mouthful.  The  sight  of 
him  reminded  Trimalchio  of  a  dog  of  his 
own,  and  he  directed  his  Scylax  to  be  led 
in,  describing  him  as  "  the  guardian  of  my 
house  and  home."  Immediately  a  dog  of 
monstrous  size  and  fastened  by  a  chain  was 
led  in,  and  after  having  been  kicked  by 
the  door-keeper  to  make  him  lie  down,  he 
took  up  his  place  before  the  table,  where- 
upon Trimalchio,  throwing  a  piece  of  white 
bread  to  him,  observed : 


Trimalchio's  Dinner     151 

"  There  is  no  one  in  my  house  that  loves 
me  more." 

On  this  the  slave,  enraged  to  think  that 
his  master  was  praising  Scylax  so  effusively, 
put  his  own  little  dog  on  the  floor  and 
"  sicked "  him  on  to  fight.  Scylax  in  the 
usual  canine  fashion  filled  the  whole  dining- 
room  with  the  most  terrific  barking,  and 
almost  tore  in  pieces  the  smaller  dog  belong- 
ing to  Croesus  and  named  by  him  "  Pearl." 
The  noise,  however,  was  not  restricted  to 
the  combat,  but  at  the  same  time  a  branched 
candlestick  was  upset  on  the  table  breaking 
all  the  glass  dishes  and  spattering  a  number 
of  the  guests  with  hot  oil.  Trimalchio, 
however,  not  wishing  to  seem  troubled  by 
the  loss  of  the  dishes,  kissed  the  slave  who 
was  responsible  for  the  uproar  and  made  him 
climb  up  on  his  back  as  if  to  play  horse, 
which  he  immediately  did,  and  struck  Tri- 
malchio's  shoulders  with  his  clenched  fist, 
calling  out  with  a  laugh  : 

"  Button,  button,  who  's  got  the  button  ?  " 


152     Trimalchio's  Dinner 

After  a  while,  however,  Trimalchio  made 
him  get  down,  and  had  a  huge  bowl  of  wine 
mixed  which  he  caused  to  be  divided  among 
all  the  slaves  who  were  on  duty,  adding  this 
proviso  : 

"  If  any  one  is  n't  willing  to  drink  this, 
then  pour  it  over  his  head.  There  's  a  time 
to  play  and  a  time  to  be  serious." 

After  this  refined  exhibition,  some  special 
dainties  were  put  upon  the  table,  the  very 
recollection  of  which,  if  you  will  believe  me, 
makes  me  ill  ;  for  in  place  of  dainty  little 
thrushes  there  were  fat  hens,  and  also  goose 
eggs  prepared  with  pastry,  all  of  which  Tri- 
malchio earnestly  begged  us  to  eat,  saying 
that  the  fowls  had  been  boned.  While  this 
was  still  going  on,  a  lictor  knocked  on  the 
dining-room  door,  and,  immediately  after,  a 
guest  clothed  in  white  and  with  a  long  retinue 
entered.  Impressed  by  the  dignity  of  his 
appearance,  I  imagined  that  the  praetor  of 
the  city  had  arrived  ;  and  so  I  tried  to  get 
up  and  set  foot  on  the  floor  even  though 


Trimalchio's  Dinner     153 

I  had  not  my  slippers  on.  Agamemnon, 
however,  laughed  at  my  excitement,  saying : 

"  Hold  on,  you  fool !  It 's  Habinnas, 
the  commissioner,  a  stone-cutter  by  trade, 
who  is  thought  to  make  a  superior  quality  of 
tombstones." 

Reassured  by  this  explanation,  I  resumed 
my  place  and  gazed  at  Habinnas,  as  he  en- 
tered, with  profound  admiration.  He,  being 
about  half  seas  over,  leaned  his  arm  on  his 
wife's  shoulder  ;  and  wearing  several  crowns 
on  his  head  and  with  ointment  streaming 
down  his  forehead  into  his  eyes,  he  took  a 
place  at  the  table  and  immediately  called  for 
wine  and  hot  water.  Tickled  by  his  jovi- 
ality, Trimalchio  himself  called  for  a  still 
larger  goblet  than  the  one  he  had,  and  asked 
Habinnas  what  sort  of  a  reception  he  had 
met  with  at  the  house  from  which  he  had 
just  come. 

"Oh,"  said  Habinnas,  "we  had  every- 
thing there  that  we  wanted  except  you ;  for 
my  heart  was  here  all  the  time.    But,  by  Jove, 


I  54    Trimalchio's  Dinner 

it  was  n't  a  bad  lay-out !  Scissa  was  giving  a 
funeral  dinner  in  honour  of  a  slave  of  his 
whom  he  had  freed  just  as  the  poor  fellow 
was  dying  ;  and  I  imagine  that  he  is  getting 
quite  a  neat  sum  for  his  share  of  the  dead 
man's  property,  for  they  say  that  he  was 
rated  at  fifty  thousand  sesterces.  Anyhow, 
everything  went  off  well,  even  though  we 
were  obliged,  according  to  custom,  to  pour 
half  of  all  the  drinks  that  we  took  over  the 
dead  man's  bones." 

"  Yes,  yes,"  said  Trimalchio  ;  "  but  what 
had  you  for  dinner  ?  " 

"  Oh,  I  '11  tell  you  if  I  can.  I  have  such 
a  memory  that  sometimes  really  I  can't  re- 
call my  own  name.  Let 's  see.  We  had 
for  the  first  course  pork  washed  down  with 
wine,  and  cheese  cakes  and  chicken  livers, 
mighty  well  cooked,  and  also  beets  and 
graham  bread,  which  for  my  part  I  prefer 
to  white  for  it  makes  you  strong  and  helps 
along  your  digestion.  The  next  course  con- 
tained little  tarts  with  a  hot  sauce  of  honey 


Trimalcliio's  Dinner     155 

and  first-rate  Spanish  wine.  As. for  the  tarts, 
I  didn't  eat  a  mouthful  of  them,  but  I  just 
smeared  myself  up  with  the  honey,  I  can 
tell  you  !  At  the  same  time,  there  were 
peas  and  nuts,  and  apples  for  each  of  us. 
I  carried  off  two  of  these  last,  and  I  have 
them  here  in  my  napkin.  Just  look,  for  if 
I  should  n't  carry  away  home  something  for 
my  pet  slave,  I  should  get  a  blowing  up, 
and  my  wife  here  reminded  me  of  it  just  in 
time.  We  had  set  before  us  also  a  piece 
of  bear's  meat.  When  Scintilla  had  unwisely 
eaten  some  of  this,  she  nearly  threw  up 
her  insides.  For  my  part,  however,  I  ate 
more  than  a  pound,  for  it  tasted  like  wild 
boar  ;  and  if,  says  I,  a  bear  eats  a  man,  all  the 
more  ought  a  man  to  eat  a  bear  when  he  gets 
a  chance.  Finally  we  had  pot-cheese,  and 
jelly,  and  snails,  and  a  dish  of  heart  and 
liver,  and  eggs  and  turnips,  and  some  kind 
of  a  dish  fixed  up  with  mustard,  —  but 
so  much  for  that.  There  were  also  offered 
to    us   in    a  dish   pickled  olives,  of  which 


156     Trimalchio's  Dinner 

some  one  who  had  no  manners  took  three 
fistfuls,  for  we  gave  the  go-by  to  the  ham. 
But  tell  me,  Gaius,  please,  why  is  n't  For- 
tunata  at  the  table  ? 

"  Oh,"  said  Trimalchio,  "  you  know  her 
ways.  Unless  she  gets  the  silver  together 
and  divides  scrapings  from  the  plates  among 
the  slaves,  she  won't  drink  a  drop." 

"  Well,"  replied  Habinnas,  "  unless  she 
does  come  to  the  table,  I  'm  going  to  clear 
out." 

And  he  would  have  started  to  get  up 
had  not  Fortunata,  as  soon  as  a  signal  was 
given,  been  called  for  four  times  by  all  of 
the  slaves  present.  On  this  she  came  in 
with  a  bright  yellow  belt  on,  fastened  in 
such  a  way  that  her  cherry-coloured  tunic 
and  twisted  anklets  and  gilded  shoes  were 
plainly  visible. 

Wiping  her  hands  on  her  handkerchief 
which  she  wore  tucked  into  her  neck,  she 
went  to  the  couch  on  which  Scintilla,  the 
wife  of  Habinnas,  was  reclining;  and  when 


Trimalchio's  Dinner     157 

Scintilla  began  to  admire  her  clothes,  she 
kissed  her,  saying : 

"  Well,  so  I  see  you  again,  do  I  ?  " 

Their  talk  presently  became  so  intimate 
that  Fortunata  began  drawing  off  the  brace- 
lets from  her  pudgy  arms  and  showed  them 
to  the  admiring  Scintilla.  Finally  she  even 
took  off  her  necklace  and  her  gold  hair- 
net, which  she  said  was  eighteen  carats 
fine.  Trimalchio,  observing  this,  ordered 
all  these  ornaments  to  be  brought  to  him, 
and  remarked  : 

"  You  see  here  a  woman's  fetters.  That's 
the  way  we  merchantmen  are  robbed.  She  's 
bound  to  have  six  pounds  and  a  half  of 
gold  on  her.  I  myself  have  a  bracelet  of 
no  less  than  ten  pounds'  weight,  bought  out 
of  the  profits  dedicated  to  the  god  Mercury." 

And  then,  lest  he  should  seem  to  be 
exaggerating,  he  called  for  a  balance  and  had 
it  carried  around  so  that  the  weight  might 
be  verified  by  all  of  us.  With  equal  taste, 
Scintilla,  taking  from  her  neck  a  little  gold 


1^8     Trimalchio's  Dinner 

case  which  she  called  her  mascot,  extracted 
from  it  a  couple  of  ear-rings,  which  in  her 
turn  she  gave  Fortunata  to  look  at,  saying  : 

"  Thanks  to  my  husband's  kindness,  no 
woman  has  finer  ones." 

"  Yes,  yes,"  said  Habinnas ;  "  you 
wheedled  me  into  buying  you  these  glass 
beans.  Really,  if  I  had  a  daughter  I  would 
cut  her  ears  off.  In  fact,  if  there  were  no 
women,  everything  would  be  as  cheap  as 
dirt ;  but  now  we  have  to  buy  dear  and  sell 
cheap." 

Meanwhile  the  women,  being  a  little 
affected  by  the  wine  which  they  had  drunk, 
giggled  together,  and  in  their  hilarity  began 
kissing  each  other,  while  one  boasted  of  her 
carefulness  as  a  housekeeper,  and  the  other 
complained  of  the  luxury  and  neglect  of  her 
husband.  While  they  had  their  heads  to- 
gether in  this  way,  Habinnas  slyly  rose,  and 
seizing  Fortunata  by  the  feet,  tipped  her  up 
on  the  couch. 

"  Ow,  ow  !  "  she  cried  as  her  skirt  slipped 


z 


T 


Toilet  of  a   Roman  Lady. 


Trimalchio's  Dinner    159 

over  her  knees ;  and  presently,  having  ar- 
ranged her  dress,  she  hid  her  face,  which 
flamed  with  blushes,  on  Scintilla's  breast  and 
covered  it  with  a  handkerchief. 

A  little  later,  after  Trimalchio  had  ordered 
the  second  part  of  the  dinner  to  be  brought 
in,  his  slaves  took  away  all  the  tables  and 
brought  in  new  ones,  sprinkling  the  floor 
with  red  and  yellow  sawdust,  and  also  with 
mica  ground  to  powder,  a  thing  which  I  had 
never  before  seen  done.  Straightway  Tri- 
malchio observed: 

"  I  could  be  perfectly  satisfied  myself 
with  this  course  alone,  for  you  now  have 
really  a  second  dinner.  Still,  if  there  's  any- 
thing else  especially  choice,  bring  it  on." 

Meanwhile  an  Alexandrian  slave  who  was 
serving  the  hot  drinks,  began  to  imitate  the 
song  of  the  nightingale,  Trimalchio  calling 
out  from  time  to  time  : 

"  Change  your  tune  !  "  and  then,  lo  and 
behold,  came  another  diversion ;  for  the 
slave  who  sat  at  Habinnas*  feet,  having  got 


i6o     Trimalchio's  Dinner 

the  hint,  I  imagine,  from  his  master,  sung 
out  all  of  a  sudden  in  a  droning  voice  these 
lines  from  the  JEneid : 

"  Meanwhile  ^neas,  with  majestic  sweep. 
Skimmed  with  his  fleet  the  waters  of  the  deep." 

A  more  excruciating  sound  never  struck 
my  ears ;  for,  apart  from  the  crescendo  and 
diminuendo  of  his  barbarous  rendering,  he 
interpolated  other  lines,  so  that  for  the  first 
time  I  found  even  Vergil  tiresome.  When 
he  had  finished,  however,  Habinnas  ap- 
plauded him,  remarking  : 

"  He  never  had  to  learn  these  things,  but 
I  educated  him  up  to  it  by  sending  him  out 
to  listen  to  the  performances  in  the  street, 
with  the  result  that  he  has  n't  his  match 
I  at  imitating  the  mule-drivers  and  the  moun- 
tebanks. He 's  awfully  clever,  for  he  can 
take  the  part  of  a  cobbler,  or  a  cook,  or  a 
baker ;  in  fact,  he  is  a  perfect  Jack-of-all- 
trades.  To  be  sure,  he  has  two  faults,  apart 
from  which  he  is  really  out  of  sight,  —  he 
has  been  circumcised  and  he  snores,  for  as  to 


Trimalchio's  Dinner     i6i 

the  fact  that  he  's  squint-eyed,  I  don't  mind 
that,  for  they  say  that  Venus  herself  has  a 
cast  in  her  eyes.  These  two  faults,  however, 
have  this  result :  he  is  never  silent  and  he 
keeps  an  eye  on  everything.  I  paid  three 
hundred  denarii  for  him." 

Scintilla  interrupted  him  in  the  midst  of 
his  talk,  observing  : 

"Yes,  but  you  don't  tell  all  the  accom- 
phshments  of  this  wretched  slave.  He  is  a 
pimp,  and  I  shall  see  that  he  gets  branded 
for  it." 

Trimalchio  laughed  at  this. 

"I   recognise    in   him,"    said  he,  "  a  real 

Cappadocian.     He 's  very  good  to  himself, 

and,  by  Jove  !    I  praise  him  for  it,  for  this  is 

the  only  way  for  a  man  to  do.      But   don't 

be  jealous.    Scintilla.     Depend    upon   it,   I 

understand  you  both.     As  sure  as  I  'm  alive, 

I  used  in  my  time  to  be  aux  petit s  soins  with 

my   master's  wife,  so  that  even  my  master 

had  a  sort  of  inkling  of  it,  and  that 's  why 

he  had  me  transferred  to  the  stewardship  of 
II 


i62     Trimalchio's  Dinner 

his  country  place.  But  least  said,  soonest 
mended." 

On  this  the  miserable  slave,  precisely  as 
though  he  had  received  high  praise,  pulled 
a  clay  lamp  out  of  his  pocket,  and  for  half  an 
hour  or  more  gave  us  an  imitation  of  trum- 
peters, Habinnas  chiming  in,  flipping  his 
lower  lip  with  his  finger.  At  last  the  slave 
sat  up  in  the  midst  of  us  and  gave  us  an 
imitation  of  flute-players  with  their  instru- 
ments, and  later,  putting  on  his  cloak  and 
taking  a  whip,  he  took  the  part  of  mule- 
drivers,  until  Habinnas  called  him  and  kissed 
him  and  offered  him  a  drink,  saying: 

"  Bully  for  you,  Massa  !  I  'm  going  to 
give  you  a  pair  of  brogans  !  " 

These  tiresome  proceedings  would  never 
have  come  to  an  end  had  not  a  dessert  been 
brought  in,  consisting  of  thrushes  made  of 
pastry  and  stuffed  with  nuts  and  raisins. 
Following  these  came  quinces  stuck  full  of 
thorns  so  as  to  represent  hedgehogs.  One 
could  have  stood  these  things,  had  not  the 


Trimalchio's  Dinner     163 

disgusting  abundance  of  the  course  made  us 
prefer  to  die  of  hunger ;  for  after  there  had 
been  set  before  us,  as  we  supposed,  a  fat 
goose  surrounded  by  fish  and  every  kind  of 
birds,  Trimalchio  remarked  : 

"  My  friends,  whatever  you  see  set  before 
you  here  has  been  made  out  of  one  single 
kind  of  material." 

Thereupon,  I,  being  a  man  of  great  insight 
immediately  understood  what  it  was,  as  I 
thought,  and  looking  at  Agamemnon  I 
said : 

"  I  should  n't  be  surprised  if  all  these 
things  were  made  out  of  filth,  or  at  any  rate, 
out  of  mud,  for  I  have  seen  at  Rome  at  the 
timeof  the  Saturnalia  the  very  same  thing  in 
the  way  of  a  dinner." 

But  before  I  had  finished  speaking, 
Trimalchio  observed  : 

"  As  I  hope  to  grow  in  wealth  and  lose 
in  flesh,  this  cook  of  mine  made  all  these 
things  out  of  pork.  There  cannot  be  a  more 
valuable  fellow    to    have    around    than    he. 


164    Trimalchio's  Dinner 

Should  he  take  a  fancy  to  do  so,  he  could 
make  you  fish  out  of  a  sow's  paunch,  and 
pigeon  out  of  bacon,  a  turtle-dove  out  of  ham, 
and  a  chicken  out  of  a  knuckle  of  beef  And 
that's  why,  by  a  happy  thought  of  mine,  I 
have  given  him  a  first  rate  name,  for  he  is 
called  Daedalus  ;  and  because  he  has  his  wits 
about  him  I  brought  him  from  Rome  a  pres- 
ent of  some  knives  made  of  Noric  steel." 

These  he  at  once  ordered  to  be  brought  out, 
and  after  we  had  looked  at  them  he  expressed 
his  admiration.  He  even  made  us  test  the 
edges  of  the  knives  on  our   cheeks. 

All  of  a  sudden  there  came  in  two  slaves, 
who  had  been  quarrelling  apparently  at 
the  town-pump  ;  for  they  still  carried  their 
water-jars  on  their  necks.  While  Trimal- 
chio  was  hearing  the  case  between  these  two 
brawlers,  neither  one  of  them  accepted  his 
decision,  but  each  broke  the  other's  water- 
jar  with  a  club.  In  our  surprise  at  the  rude- 
ness of  the  drunken  pair,  we  fixed  our  eyes 
on  them  as  they  quarrelled,  and  I  noted  that 


Trimalchio's  Dinner     165 

out  of  the  broken  vessels  came  tumbling 
oysters  and  scallops  which  a  slave  collected 
in  a  dish  and  carried  around.  The  clever 
cook  matched  these  dainties,  for  he  had 
served  up  snails  on  a  silver  gridiron,  sing- 
ing all  the  time  himself  with  a  quavering 
and  disagreeable  voice. 

It  is  unpleasant  to  relate  what  followed, 
for  boys  wearing  their  hair  long,  brought  in 
ointment  in  a  silver  dish  and  anointed  the 
feet  of  the  reclining  guests  after  they  had 
bound  their  legs  and  ankles  with  garlands. 
Then  they  poured  a  quantity  from  the  same 
ointment  into  the  wine-cooler  and  the  lamp. 

Fortunata  now  expressed  a  desire  to  dance, 
while  Scintilla  applauded  more  often  than 
she  talked,  when  Trimalchio  observed : 

"  Philargyrus  and  Cario,  although  you 
always  bet  against  me  in  the  circus  games, 
come  and  invite  your  concubine  Menophila 
to  take  her  place  at  table." 

Not  to  make  a  long  story  of  it,  we 
were  almost    crowded    off  the    couches,  so 


1 66    Trimalchio's  Dinner 

rudely  did  the  whole  body  of  slaves  take 
possession  of  the  entire  dining-room.  At 
any  rate,  I  noticed  beside  me  the  cook  who 
had  made  the  goose  out  of  pork,  reeking 
with  pickle-brine  and  spices.  Nor  was  he 
satisfied  with  having  a  place  at  the  table,  but 
he  at  once  began  to  give  an  imitation  of 
Ephesus,  the  tragic  actor,  and  from  time  to 
time  challenged  his  master  to  bet  as  to 
whether  the  jockeys  who  sported  the  green 
would  carry  off  the  first  prize  at  the  next 
circus  games. 

Roaring  with  laughter  at  his  familiarity, 
Trimalchio  observed : 

"  Really,  my  friends,  slaves  too  are  human 
beings,  and  they  have  drunk  the  same  milk 
as  ourselves,  even  though  they  have  had 
hard  luck.  Nevertheless,  if  I  live,  mine 
shall  soon  breathe  the  air  of  freedom.  In 
fact,  I  'm  going  to  set  them  all  free  in  my 
will.  I  bequeath  to  Philargyrus  a  farm,  and 
the  freedom  of  his  wife,  and  to  Cario  a  dwell- 
ing-house   and  the  amount  of  his  emanci- 


Trimalchio's  Dinner     167 

pation-tax,  and  a  bed  with  bedclothlng. 
I  'm  making  Fortunata  my  heir  and  I  com- 
mend her  to  the  care  of  all  my  friends. 
And  I  let  these  things  be  known  now, 
so  that  my  slaves  may  love  me  just  as 
much  at  the  present  time  as  if  I  were 
already  dead." 

At  this  they  all  began  to  express  their 
thanks  for  their  master's  kindness  ;  where- 
upon he,  putting  aside  his  trifling,  had  a 
copy  of  his  will  brought  in,  and  caused  it  to 
be  read  aloud  from  beginning  to  end  while 
the  slaves  all  groaned.  Then  looking  at 
Habinnas,  he  said  : 

"  What  do  you  think  of  that,  my  dear 
friend  ?  Are  you  going  to  construct  my 
monument  as  I  have  directed?  I  ask  you 
particularly  to  put  a  little  dog  at  the  foot  of 
my  statue  with  crowns  and  ointments  and 
the  contests  of  PetraTs,  so  that  through  your 
goodness  I  may  be  able  to  live  even  after 
death  ;  and  take  care  to  have  the  plot  one 
hundred  feet   front  and  two    hundred    feet 


1 68     Trimalchio's  Dinner 

deep.  And  I  want  to  have  every  kind  of 
fruit  tree  around  my  remains,  and  lots  of 
vines,  for  it's  a  great  mistake  that  houses 
should  be  carefully  attended  to  for  a  man 
when  he  is  alive,  but  that  the  house  where 
we  have  to  dwell  a  great  deal  longer  should 
be  neglected.  And  so,  above  all,  I  want  to 
have  this  inscription  placed  upon  it : 

**  *  This  Monument  does  not  Descend  to  Heirs.' 

"  Moreover,  I  shall  take  care  to  have  it 
provided  in  my  will  that  when  I  am  dead  I 
shall  suffer  no  harm ;  for  I  shall  set  one  of 
my  freedmen  over  my  tomb  to  watch  it,  so 
that  no  one  may  commit  any  nuisance  there. 
I  ask  you  also  to  depict  on  the  front  of  my 
monument  ships  under  full  sail,  and  myself 
sitting  on  the  judgment-seat  with  my  best 
toga  on,  and  wearing  my  five  gold  rings,  and 
pouring  money  out  of  a  bag  for  the  benefit 
of  the  people.  For  you  know  that  in  my 
will  I  have  provided  a  public  dinner  with 
a  present  of  two  denarii  for  each  guest. 
Just   represent   that,  please,    and   represent 


Trimalchio's  Dinner    169 

also  the  public  having  a  good  time.  Put, 
also,  at  my  right  hand  a  statue  of  my  wife 
Fortunata  holding  a  dove,  and  let  her  be 
leading  along  a  little  dog  with  a  blanket 
on  ;  and  introduce  also  my  favourite  young 
slave,  and  wine-jars  carefully  sealed  up  so 
as  not  to  leak.  And  you  might  also  carve 
a  broken  urn  and  a  youth  weeping  over 
it.  In  the  middle  of  it  place  a  clock,  so 
that  whoever  comes  to  see  what  time  it  is 
will  have  to  read  my  name  whether  he  wants 
to  or  not.  Consider  also,  whether  this  in- 
scription seems  to  you  entirely  suitable  :  — 

**  *  Here  lies  Gaius  Pompeius   Trimalchio,   a   second 
mi^cenas.     a  commissionership  was  bestowed  upon 

HIM  WITHOUT  HIS  SOLICITATION.  ThOUGH  HE  MIGHT 
HAVE  BEEN  ENROLLED  ON  THE    BenCH  WITH  THE  JuDGES 

AT  Rome,  he  did  not  desire  this.  Loyal,  Brave, 
AND  Faithful,  he  rose  from  Poverty  to  Wealth, 
he  left  behind  him  Thirty  Million  Sesterces,  and 

YET  he  never  studied  PHILOSOPHY.  FaREWELL  ! 
Go  THOU  AND  DO  LIKEWISE    !  '  " 

As  Trimalchio  repeated  these  words,  he 
began  to  weep   copiously.     Fortunata   also 


lyo     Trimalchio's  Dinner 

wept,  and  Habinnas  wept,  and  the  slaves 
wept ;  and  as  though  invited  to  his  funeral, 
they  filled  the  whole  dining-room  with  the 
sound  of  their  mourning.  Nay,  even  I 
had  begun  to  weep  when  Trimalchio  briskly 
said : 

"  Well,  since  we  know  that  we  all  have  to 
die  in  the  future,  why  should  n't  we  live  in 
the  present?  Bless  your  hearts!  let's  all 
take  a  plunge  in  the  bath-tub  at  my  expense. 
It  won't  do  any  harm.  It 's  as  hot  as  a 
furnace." 

"Yes,  yes,"  said  Habinnas;  "I  like 
nothing  better  than  to  make  two  days  out 
of  one." 

And  with  bare  feet  he  got  up  and  began 
to  follow  Trimalchio,  who  applauded  his 
sentiments. 

"What  do  you  think  of  this?"  said  I, 
looking  at  Ascyltos.  "  For  my  part  if  I 
shall  even  see  a  bath,  I  shall  die  on  the 
spot." 

"  Oh,  let  *s  follow  them,"  said  he,  "  and 


Trimalchio's  Dinner    171 

while  they  're  on  the  way  to  the  bath-room, 
we  '11  make  our  escape  In  the  crowd." 

As  this  seemed  a  good  scheme,  we 
approached  the  door,  following  Giton  through 
the  portico  where  a  dog  chained  up  received 
us  with  such  a  barking  that  Ascyltos  fell  into 
the  cistern.  I,  too,  being  rather  affected  by 
drink,  and  being  the  same  man  also  who  had 
feared  even  the  painted  dog  before  dinner, 
while  I  was  now  attempting  to  assist  rriy  sub- 
merged friend,  was  dragged  into  the  same 
pool.  We  were  both  rescued,  however,  by 
the  janitor,  who,  on  his  arrival,  quieted  the 
dog  and  dragged  us  shivering  to  the  dry 
floor.  Giton  had  already  preserved  himself 
from  the  dog  by  a  very  shrewd  device ;  for 
when  the  animal  barked,  the  boy  had  thrown 
to  him  everything  that  had  been  given  him 
by  us  from  the  table,  and  the  dog,  attracted 
by  the  food,  had  stopped  his  barking.  But 
when,  suffering  from  the  cold,  we  had  begged 
the  janitor  to  let  us  out  through  the  doorway 
he  said : 


172     Trimalchio's  Dinner 

"  You  are  mistaken  if  you  imagine  that 
you  can  leave  by  the  same  way  that  you  came. 
No  guest  has  ever  been  let  out  through 
the  same  door ;  for  they  enter  by  one  and 
depart  by  another." 

What  on  earth  were  we  poor  fellows  to 
do,  shut  up  in  a  new  sort  of  labyrinth,  and 
already  beginning  to  experience  a  desire  for 
a  hot  bath  ?  So  we  next  gladly  asked  the 
man  to  conduct  us  to  the  bath-room ;  and 
there,  throwing  aside  our  clothing,  which 
Giton  set  himself  to  dry  at  the  entrance,  we 
entered  the  bath.  It  was  very  narrow,  like 
a  cistern,  and  in  it  Trimalchio  was  standing 
upright.  Not  even  in  this  situation  could 
he  stop  his  absurd  boasting,  for  he  kept 
saying  that  there  was  nothing  better  than  to 
bathe  apart  from  the  mob,  and  that  once 
upon  a  time  in  this  very  place  there  had  been 
a  bakery.  Presently,  growing  weary,  he  sat 
down ;  and  attracted  by  the  echo  of  the 
bath-room,  he  opened  his  drunken  mouth 
toward  the  ceiling  and  began  to  murder  the 


Cistern  in  Roman   House. 


Trimalchio's  Dinner    173 

songs  of  Menecrates,  as  those  present  who 
understood  what  he  was  saying  informed  us. 
The  other  guests  joined  hands  around  the 
bath  and  made  a  great  uproar  by  their  gig- 
gling. Still  others,  with  hands  clasped  be- 
hind them,  tried  to  pick  up  rings  from  the 
floor,  or  else,  kneeling,  attempted  to  bend 
backward  and  touch  the  tips  of  their  toes. 
While  the  others  were  disporting  themselves 
in  this  way,  we  went  down  to  the  warm  bath 
which  was  being  heated  for  Trimalchio. 

Having  dispelled  the  fumes  of  wine,  we 
were  next  led  into  a  second  dining-room 
where  Fortunata  had  so  arranged  her  table 
ornaments  that  I  observed  lights  and  bronze 
statues  of  fishermen,  and  tables  of  solid 
silver,  and  gilded  earthenware  cups  set 
around  and  wine  before  us  flowing  from  a 
wine-bag. 

Trimalchio  at  once  remarked  : 

"  My  friends,  a  slave  of  mine  has  to-day 
celebrated  the  first  shaving  of  his  beard. 
He  's  a  thrifty  fellow  and  one  who   never 


174    Trimalchio's  Dinner 

wastes  a  crumb.     So  let's  moisten  our  clay 
and  not  go  home  till  morning  !  " 

As  he  said  this  a  cock  crew.  Somewhat 
perturbed  by  the  sound,  which  he  thought  a 
bad  omen,  Trimalchio  ordered  wine  to  be 
poured  out  under  the  table  and  to  be  sprin- 
kled also  on  the  lamp.  Nay,  he  even  shifted 
a  ring  to  his  right  hand  and  remarked  : 

"  It  is  n't  for  nothing  that  chanticleer 
has  sounded  his  signal  ;  for  either  a  fire  is 
bound  to  break  out,  or  some  one  in  the 
neighbourhood  is  going  to  die.  I  hope  it 
is  n't  any  of  us.  And  so  whoever  brings  me 
that  bird  shall  get  a  present.  " 

Immediately  the  cock  was  brought  in 
from  the  neighbourhood,  and  Trimalchio 
ordered  it  to  be  killed  and  cooked.  There- 
fore, as  soon  as  it  has  been  cut  up  by  the 
accomplished  cook  who  a  little  while  before 
had  made  birds  and  fishes  out  of  pork,  it 
was  thrown  into  the  pot,  and  while  Daedalus 
tossed  off  a  hot  drink,  Fortunata  ground  up 
some  pepper  in  a  wooden  pepper-box. 


Trimalchio's  Dinner     175 

After  some  trifling  dainties  had  been 
consumed,  Trimalchio,  looking  around  at 
the  servants,  said : 

"  Well,  have  n't  you  had  your  dinner  yet  ? 
Go  and  get  it,  and  let  other  servants  come 
here  and  wait  upon  us." 

Directly,  then,  another  set  came  in,  those 
who  went  out  exclaiming,  "  Farewell,  Gaius !  '* 
and  those  who  came  in  saluting  him  with, 
"  Hail,  Gaius  !  "  Soon  after,  for  the  first 
time,  our  mirth  was  checked ;  for  when  a 
young  slave  who  was  by  no  means  bad  look- 
ing had  come  in  among  the  new  servants, 
Trimalchio  pounced  upon  him  and  began  to 
kiss  him  for  a  long  time.  Whereupon 
Fortunata,  in  order  to  prove  her  equal  right 
in  the  household,  began  to  abuse  Trimalchio, 
styling  him  the  scum  of  the  earth  and  a 
disgraceful  person.  At  last  she  called  him 
a  dog.  Taking  offence  at  this  vitupera- 
tion, Trimalchio  threw  a  cup  in  her  face, 
and  she,  as  though  she  had  lost  an  eye, 
shrieked    and    placed  her  trembling  hands 


176    Trimalchio's  Dinner 

before  her  face.  Scintilla  also  was  very 
much  disturbed  and  hid  the  cowering  woman 
in  her  robe.  A  slave  at  once  in  an  officious 
manner  placed  a  cold  jug  against  her  cheek, 
leaning  upon  which  Fortunata  began  to 
moan  and  cry. 

On  his  side  Trimalchio  exclaimed, — 
"  How  now  ?  The  jade  does  n't  remem- 
ber that  I  took  her  off  the  stage  and  made 
an  honest  woman  of  her ;  she  puffs  herself 
up  like  a  frog  and  fouls  her  own  nest,  —  a 
faggot  and  not  a  lady.  But,  as  the  say- 
ing goes,  one  who  was  born  in  a  garret 
does  n't  fit  a  palace.  So  help  me  gracious, 
I  '11  see  that  this  clodhopping  tragedy  queen 
is  brought  up  with  a  round  turn.  I,  when  I 
was  only  a  poor  devil,  had  a  chance  to  marry 
a  fortune  of  ten  million  sesterces,  and  you 
know  I  'm  not  lying  about  it.  Agatho,  who 
sold  perfume  to  a  lady  who  lived  next  door, 
took  me  aside  and  said :  '  I  beg  you  not  to 
let  your  race  perish  from  the  earth ; '  but 
just  because  I  was  a  good  fellow  and  did  n't 


Trimalchio's  Dinner     177 

want  to  seem  fickle,  I  fastened  this  ball-and- 
chain  to  my  leg.  Very  well,  now,  I  '11  teach 
you  to  claw  me,  and  just  to  show  you  on  the 
spot  what  you  've  brought  upon  yourself,  I 
order  you,  Habinnas,  not  to  put  her  statue 
on  my  tomb,  lest  even  after  my  death  I 
should  be  having  scraps  with  her.  In  fact, 
to  teach  her  how  severe  I  can  be,  I  forbid 
her  to  kiss  me  when  I  am  dead." 

After  this  thunderous  blast,  Habinnas  fell 
to  begging  him  not  to  be  angry,  saying : 

"  None  of  us  is  perfect.  We  are  men,  you 
know,  not  gods." 

And  Scintilla  also,  weeping,  addressed  him 
in  the  same  way  and  exhorted  him  by  his 
better  nature  to  be  mollified,  calling  him, 
"  Gaius."  On  this  Trimalchio  could  not 
keep  back  his  tears  and  remarked  : 

"  I  beg  you,  Habinnas,  as  you  hope  to  be 
lucky,  if  I  have  done  anything  wrong,  just 
spit  in  my  face.  I  kissed  this  excellent 
young  slave,  not  because  of  his  good  looks 
but  because  of  his  intelligence.     He  can  say 


12 


178     Trimalchio's  Dinner 

his  table  of  '  ten  times/  he  can  read  a  book 
at  sight,  and  he's  saved  up  some  money 
for  himself  out  of  his  daily  food  allowance, 
and  bought  a  little  stool  and  two  ladles 
with  his  own  money.  So  does  n't  he  de- 
serve to  have  me  keep  my  eye  on  him  ? 
But  of  course  Fortunata  won't  have  it. 
Is  n't  that  so,  you  bandy-legged  creature  ? 
You'd  better  be  thankful  for  your  blessings, 
you  bird  of  prey,  and  not  make  me  show 
my  teeth,  you  dainty  darling,  or  else  you  shall 
find  out  what  my  anger  is  like.  You  know 
me  !  What  I  've  once  decided  on  is  as  sure 
as  fate.  But  come,  let 's  think  of  something 
more  cheerful.  I  hope  you  're  all  comfor- 
table, my  friends.  I  used  to  be  myself  the 
same  sort  of  person  that  you  all  are,  but,  by 
my  own  merits,  I  became  what  I  am.  It 's 
brain  that  makes  men,  and  everything  else 
is  all  rot.  One  man  '11  tell  you  one  rule  of 
life,  and  another '11  tell  you  another.  But 
/  say,  *  Buy  cheap  and  sell  dear,'  and  so  you 
see  I  'm  just  bursting  with  wealth.     (Well, 


Trimalchio's  Dinner     179 

grunter,  are  you  still  crying?  Pretty  soon 
I  '11  give  you  something  to  cry  for  !)  Well, 
as  I  was  going  on  to  say,  my  clever  manage- 
ment brought  me  to  my  present  good  fortune. 
When  I  came  from  Asia,  I  was  about  the 
height  of  this  candle-stick  here,  and,  in  fact, 
I  used  to  measure  myself  against  it  every  day. 
And  so  as  to  get  a  beard  on  my  mug,  I  used 
to  smear  my  lips  with  lamp-oil.  I  was  a 
great  favourite  with  my  master  for  fourteen 
years,  and  I  was  on  pretty  good  terms  with 
my  master's  wife.  You  understand  what  I 
mean.  I  'm  not  saying  anything  about  it, 
because  I  'm  not  one  of  the  boastful  kind ; 
but,  as  the  gods  would  have  it,  I  was  really 
master  in  the  house  myself  and  I  took  his 
fancy  greatly.  Well,  there  's  no  need  of  a 
long  story.  He  made  me  his  residuary 
legatee,  and  I  came  into  a  fortune  fit  for  a 
senator.  But  nobody  never  gets  enough. 
I  became  crazy  to  go  into  business;  and,  not 
to  bore  you,  I  had  five  ships  built,  loaded 
them  with  wine  (and  wine  at  that  time  was 


i8o     Trimalchio's  Dinner 

worth  its  weight  in  gold),  and  sent  them  to 
Rome.  You  'd  imagine  that  it  had  been 
actually  planned  that  way,  for  every  blessed 
ship  was  wrecked,  and  that 's  fact  and  not 
fable.  On  one  single  day  the  sea  swallowed 
down  thirty  million  sesterces.  Do  you  think 
I  gave  up  ?  Not  much  !  This  loss  just 
whetted  my  appetite  as  though  it  had  been 
a  mere  nothing.  I  had  other  ships  built, 
bigger  and  better,  and  they  were  luckier  too, 
so  that  everybody  said  I  was  a  plucky  fellow. 
You  know  the  proverb,  that  it  takes  great 
courage  to  build  a  great  ship.  I  loaded 
them  with  wine  once  more,  with  bacon, 
beans,  ointment,  and  slaves,  and  at  that  crisis 
Fortunata  did  a  very  nice  thing,  for  she  sold 
all  her  jewelry  and  even  all  her  clothes,  and 
put  a  hundred  gold  pieces  in  my  hand.  And 
this  was  really  the  germ  of  my  good  fortune. 
What  the  gods  wish  happens  quickly.  In  a 
single  round  trip  I  piled  up  ten  million 
sesterces,  and  immediately  bought  in  all 
the  lands  that  had  belonged  to  my  former 


Trimalchio's  Dinner     i8i 

owner.  I  built  me  a  house  and  bought  all 
the  cattle  that  were  offered  for  sale,  and 
whatever  I  touched  grew  as  rich  as  a  honey- 
comb. After  I  began  to  have  more  money 
than  my  whole  native  land  contains,  then, 
says  I,  enough.  I  retired  from  business  and 
began  to  lend  money  to  freedmen.  A 
fortune-teller,  a  young  Greek  named  Serapa, 
a  man  who  was  on  very  good  terms  with  the 
gods,  gave  me  some  points  when  I  was  mak- 
ing up  my  mind  to  go  out  of  business.  He 
told  me  of  things  that  even  I  had  forgotten. 
He  set  them  forth  down  to  the  finest  pos- 
sible point.  He  knew  my  very  insides, 
and  the  only  thing  he  did  n't  tell  me  was 
what  I  had  had  for  dinner  the  day  before. 
You  would  imagine  that  he  had  lived  in  the 
same  house  with  me.  I  say,  Habinnas,  you 
were  there,  I  think.  Didn't  he  say  this? 
*  Ton  have  married  a  wife  from  such-and-such 
a  position.  You  are  unlucky  in  your  friends. 
No  one  is  ever  as  grateful  to  you  as  he  ought  to 
he.    Tou  have  great  estates.  Tou  are  cherishing 


i82     Trimalchio's  Dinner 

a  viper  in  your  bosom^  And  he  also  told  me 
something  that  I  haven't  mentioned,  —  that 
there  remains  to  me  now  of  life  just  thirty- 
years,  four  months,  and  two  days.  More- 
over, I  'm  going  to  come  into  a  legacy  pretty 
soon.  That's  what  my  horoscope  tells  me. 
But  if  I  shall  be  so  lucky  as  to  unite  my 
Apulian  estates,  I  shall  not  have  lived  in 
vain.  In  the  mean  time,  while  my  luck 
held,  I  built  this  house  which,  as  you  know, 
was  once  a  mere  shanty,  but  is  now  a  palace. 
It  has  four  regular  dining-rooms,  twenty 
bed-rooms,  two  marble  porticoes,  an  upstairs 
dining-room,  a  bed-room  in  which  I  sleep 
myself,  a  sitting-room  for  this  viper  here, 
and  an.  excellent  janitor's  office.  It  holds  as 
many  strangers  as  a  hotel.  Indeed,  when 
Scaurus  came  here,  he  would  n't  put  up  any- 
where else,  even  though  he  has  his  father's 
house  to  go  to,  on  the  seashore.  There  are 
a  good  many  other  things  that  I  *m  going  to 
show  you  presently ;  but,  believe  me,  a  man 
is   worth  just   as  much   as   he    has   in    his 


Trimalchio's  Dinner     183 

pocket ;  and  according  to  what  you  hold  in 
your  hand  so  will  you  be  held  in  esteem  by 
others.  This  is  what  your  friend  has  to  say 
to  you,  a  man  who  once,  as  they  say,  was  a 
cat,  but  now  is  a  king.  Meanwhile,  Stichus, 
bring  out  my  grave-clothes  in  which  I  want 
to  be  buried,  and  bring  out  also  some  oint- 
ment, and  a  snack  from  that  wine-jar  there 
from  which  I  wish  to  have  my  bones 
washed." 

Stichus  immediately  complied  and  brought 
a  white  coverlet  and  a  purple  tunic  into  the 
dining-room  ;  whereupon  Trimalchio  asked 
us  to  feel  whether  they  were  all  wool  or  not, 
and  then,  smiling,  he  said,  — 

"  See  to  it,  Stichus,  that  neither  the  mice 
nor  the  moths  get  hold  of  these  ;  for  if  they 
do  I  '11  have  you  burnt  alive.  I  want  to  be 
buried  in  a  glorious  fashion,  so  that  all  the 
people  will  bless  me." 

Then  he  opened  a  jar  of  ointment  and 
anointed  us  all,  saying  as  he  did  it,  — 

"  I  hope  that  everything  will  please  me  as 


184    Trimalchio's  Dinner 

much  when  I  'm  dead  as  it  does  while  I  'm 
alive." 

Then  he  ordered  wine  to  be  poured  into  a 
wine-cooler  and  observed,  — 

"  Consider  that  you  have  received  an 
invitation  to  my  funeral." 

The  thing  had  gone  to  a  disgusting  ex- 
treme, when  Trimalchio,  sodden  with  drink, 
hit  upon  a  new  sort  of  exhibition,  and 
had  hornblowers  brought  into  the  dining- 
room.  Then,  having  been  propped  up  on  a 
number  of  pillows,  he  sprawled  himself  out 
upon  the  lowest  couch  and  said,  — 

"  Imagine  that  I  am  dead.  Say  some- 
thing nice  about  me." 

The  hornblowers  blew  a  funeral  march  ; 
and  one  of  them,  the  slave  of  the  under- 
taker, who  was  really  the  most  respectable 
man  in  the  crowd,  blew  such  a  tremendous 
blast  that  he  roused  up  the  whole  neigh- 
bourhood. The  police  who  were  on  duty 
in  the  vicinity,  thinking  that  Trimalchio's 
house  was  on  fire,  suddenly  broke  down  the 


Trimalchio's  Dinner     185 

door,  and  rushed  in  with  axes  and  water,  as 
was  their  right.  Seizing  this  very  favourable 
opportunity,  we  gave  Agamemnon  the  sHp, 
and  made  our  escape  as  hastily  as  though 
we  were  really  fleeing  from  a  conflagration. 

There  was  no  light  in  front  of  the  house 
to  show  us  the  way  as  we  wandered  about, 
nor  did    the  intense    stillness   of  the   night 

o 

give  us  any  hope  of  meeting  wayfarers  with 
torches.  The  effects  of  the  wine,  moreover, 
and  our  ignorance  of  the  locality  would  have 
confused  us  even  had  it  been  in  the  day- 
time ;  and  so,  after  we  had  dragged  our 
bleeding  feet  for  almost  an  hour  over  the 
sharp  stones  and  bits  of  broken  pottery  that 
lay  in  the  street,  we  were  at  last  saved  by 
the  ingenuity  of  Giton  ;  for  he,  fearing  to 
lose  his  way  even  in  daylight,  had  cleverly 
marked  all  the  pillars  and  columns  of  the 
houses  with  chalk,  and  these  marks  were 
visible  even  in  the  thick  darkness,  and 
by  their  whiteness  showed  us  the  way 
as    we   wandered    about.     Nevertheless,  we 


1 86    Trimalchio's  Dinner 

had  considerable  trouble  even  after  we 
reached  our  inn  ;  for  the  old  woman  who 
kept  it,  having  passed  a  good  deal  of  time  in 
drinking  with  her  various  guests,  would  not 
have  known  it  even  though  the  place  had 
been  on  fire.  We  might  very  well,  there- 
fore, have  spent  the  entire  night  on  the 
doorsteps  had  not  Trimalchio's  courier  with 
ten  wagons  come  upon  us,  and  after  clamour- 
ing for  a  little  while,  at  last  smashed  the  door 
of  the  inn  and  thus  enabled  us  to  enter. 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL   APPENDIX 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL   APPENDIX 

SELECTED    LISTS    OF    BOOKS 

I.  On  Primitive  Forms  of  Fiction.  —  Tylor,  Primi- 
tive Culture  (London,  1871);  Fergusson,  Tree 
and  Serpent  Worship  (London,  1868) ;  Dorman, 
Origin  of  Primitive  Superstitions  (Philadelphia, 
1881);  Lee,  Ghostly  Fisitants  (London,  1882); 
Sterne,  Naturgeschichte  der  Gespenster  (Weimar, 
1863)  ;  Sayce,  Introduction  to  the  Science  of  Lan- 
guage^ch.lx.  (London,  1880)  ;  Lang,  Custom  and 
Myth,Tpp.  103-120,  212-242  (London,  1885); 
Frazer,  Totemis?n  (London,  1887);  Mannhardt, 
IVald-  und  Feldkulte (Berlin,  1875);  Gubernatis, 
Zoological  Mythology  (London,  1874)  ;  Clouston, 
Popular  Tales  and  Fictions,  vol.  i.,  p.  275  foil. 
(London,  1887);  ]X\\y^-D^.wlds,  Buddhist  Birth- 
Stories  (London,  1880)  ;  Benfey,  Introduction  to 
the  Panchatantra  (1859)  ;  Rutherford,  Intro- 
duction to  his  edition  of  Babrius  (London, 
1883)  ;  Keller  in  the  fahrbiicher  fur  Klassische 


iQO    Bibliographical  Appendix 

Philologie  (1861-67);  Sir  Richard  Burton's 
"  terminal  essay  "  (section  iii.)  in  vol.  x.  of  his 
Thousand  Nights  and  a  Night  (1886);  Keith- 
Falconer,  Fables  of  Bidpai  (London,  1885); 
Jacobs,  "  A  Short  History  of  the  i^sopic  Fable  " 
in  The  Fables  of  JEsop  (New  York,  1894),  this 
volume  also  containing  (pp.  196  foil.)  some 
valuable  notes  on  the  origin  of  the  different 
iEsopic  fables;  id.  The  Fables  of  Msop  w'wh 
an  introduction,  2  vols.  (London,  1889);  and 
Bedier,  Les  Fabliaux  (Paris,  1893). 

II.  On  Greek  and  Roman  Fiction.  —  A.  Lang, 
Ho?ner  and  the  Epic  (London,  1893)  ;  Dunlop, 
History  of  Fiction  (last  ed.  London,  1 890); 
Nicolai,  Ueber  Entstehung  und  TVesen  des 
griechischen  Romans  (Berlin,  1867);  Rohde, 
Der  griechische  Roman  und  seine  Vorldufer 
(Leipzig,  1876);  Paldamus,  Rbtnische  Erotik 
(Greifswald,  1833);  Chauvin,  Les  Ro?nanciers 
Grecs  et  Latins  (Paris,  1862)  ;  Chassang,  Histoire 
du  Roman  dans  PAntiquite  Grecque  et  Latine 
(Paris,  1862);  -Warren,  A  History  of  the  Novel 
prior  to  the  Seventeenth  Century  (New  York, 
1895);  and  Salverte,  Le  Roman  dans  la  Grece 
Ancienne  (Paris,  1893). 


Bibliographical  Appendix     191 

m.  On  Roman  Life  in  the  Petronian  Age.  — 
Friedlander,  Sittengeschicbte  R0771S  (Leipzig^ 
1888-90);  Marquardt-Mau,  Privatleben  der 
^oVw^r  (Leipzig,  1886)  ;  Menard,  La  Vie  Priv'ee 
des  Anc'iens  (Paris,  1880);  Thomas,  La  Socl'ete 
Romaine  d'apres  Petrone  (Paris,  1 89 2);  Inge, 
Roman  Society  under  the  Ca:sars  (New  York, 
1888)  ;  Preston  and  Dodge,  The  Private  Life  of 
the  Romans  (Boston  and  New  York,  1894); 
Lanciani,  ^indent  Rome  in  the  Light  of  Recent 
Discoveries  (Boston  and  New  York,  1888);  id. 
Ruins  ajid  Excavations  of  Ancient  Rome  (1897); 
Becker-Goll,  Gallus  (Leipzig,  1880-82); 
Overbeck-Mau,  Pompeii  (Leipzig,  1884). 
Works  of  fiction  that  help  the  reader  to  an 
understanding  of  this  period  are  :  Sienkiewicz, 
^0  Vadis  (Boston,  1896);  and  Farrar,  Dark- 
ness and  Dawn  (London,  1892).  See  also  Bar- 
ing-Gould's Tragedy  of  the  Caesars  (London, 
1892). 

IV.  Texts,  Translations,  etc.  —  The  Greek  ro- 
mances are  printed  in  the  Courier-Larcher 
collection,  12  vols.  (Paris,  1824),  and  are 
edited  with  a  Latin  version  by  Westermann 
and    Hercher    in   the    Didot  collection    (Paris, 


ig2     Bibliographical  Appendix 

1856).  English  translations  of  the  principal 
ones  are  printed  in  the  Bohn  Library  (London, 
1856).  Of  Petronius,  the  standard  Latin 
text  is  that  of  Biicheler  {editio  7naior^  Berlin, 
1862;  editio  W/W-,  Berlin,  1895).  There  is  a 
recent  edition  of  the  Cena  Trimalchionis  with  a 
German  translation  and  commentary  by  Fried- 
lander  (Leipzig,  1891);  and  a  text  with 
English  notes  by  W.  E.  Waters  has  been 
announced  but  has  not  yet  appeared.  There 
is  an  Eno-lish  translation  of  the  whole  of 
Petronius  by  Kelly  (London,  1856).  A  French 
version  was  made  by  De  Guerle  (Paris,  1886); 
and  by  Nisard  (Paris,  1882);  an  Italian  ren- 
dering by  Cesareo ;  and  German  ones  by 
Heinse  (Schwabach,  1783)  and  Schliiter  (last 
ed.  Stuttgart,  1873).  German  versions  of  the 
Cena  Trimalchionis  alone  are  by  Wellauer  in 
Jahn's  Archiv^  vol.  x.  194J  and  Merkens 
(Jena,  1876). 
For  an  account  of  the  MSS.  of  Petronius,  see 
Beck,  The  Age  of  Petronius  (Cambridge, 
Mass.,  1856)  ;  id.  The  MSS.  of  Petronius  (Cam- 
bridge, Mass.,  1863);  and  the  introduction  to 
Biicheler's  larger  edition.  On  the  plebeian 
Latinity  in   general,    see    Cooper,  The  Roman 


Bibliographical  Appendix     193 

Sermo  Plebeius  (Boston  and  New  York,  1895); 
and,  with  especial  reference  to  Petronius, 
Cesareo,  De  Petro7iii  Sermone  (Rome,  1887). 
There  is  a  lexicon  to  Petronius  {Lexicon 
Petron'ianum  by  Segebade  and  Lemmatzsch 
(Leipzig,  1898).  As  to  the  locality  where 
Trimalchio's  dinner  may  be  supposed  to  have 
taken  place,  see  H.  W.  Hayley  in  Harvard 
Classical  Studies^  vol,  ii.  (Boston,  1896).  For 
some  general  remarks  on  Petronius  see  Petre- 
quin,  R'echerches  sur  Petrone  (Paris,  1869)  ;  Col- 
lignon,  ^tude  sur  Petrone  (Paris,  1892);  and  a 
paper  by  M.  Gaston  Boissier  in  the  Revue  des 
Deux  Mondes  for  November,    1874. 


INDEX  TO  THE  INTRODUCTION 


INDEX  TO  THE  INTRODUCTION 


Achilles  Tatius,  17. 

JEsop,  5. 

^thiopica  of  Heliodorus,  35. 

Alciphron,  38. 

Antonius  Diogenes,  34. 

Apollonius  Tyrius,  37. 

Apuleius,  8,  24,  41,  42. 

"  Arbiter,"  the  name,  46,  48. 

Aristsnetus,  38. 

Aristides  of  Miletus,  20. 

Babrius,  5. 
Babyknica,  35. 
Babylonian  Tales,  30. 
Balzac,  H.  de,  30. 
Beast  Fables,  5. 
Bidpai,  5. 

Bithynian  Tales,  30. 
Bodach  Glas,  the,  13. 

Carmen  de  Bella  Chili,  5 1 . 

Cena  Trimalchionis,  synopsis  of  the,  62-69. 

Cent  Nouvelles  Nouvelles  of  Loms  XI.,  30. 

Cheereas  and  Callirrhoe,  37. 

Cippi,  Nicolaus,  53. 


198     Index  to  the  Introduction 

Codex  Bcrncnsis,  52. 

Codex  Traguricnsis,  52,  53,  54,  55. 

Confessio  Amatitis,  source  of  the,  37. 

CoJites  Drblatiques  of  Balzac,  30. 

Cupid  arid  Psyche,  8,  42. 

Cyprian  Tales,  30. 

C)T9/iii'^/M  of  Xenophon,  34. 

Daphnis  and  Chloe,  39,  40. 

Dark  Ages,  the,  42,  43. 

Dolph  Heyliger,  14. 

Don  Juan,  source  of  the  story  of,  3  7. 

Du  Pin,  55. 

Egyptian  Tales,  30. 

Empusa,  1  2. 

Ephesiaca,  35. 

Ephesian  Matron,  story  of  the,  24,  25,  26,  27. 

Ephesian  Tales,  30. 

Epic  as  representing  the  true  Greek  fiction,  15, 

£ro//V^  of  Parthenius,  21,  22. 

Eugenius  Vulgarius,  5 1 . 

Fable,  development  of  the,  4,  5. 

**  Fairy,"  origin  of  the  name,  9. 

Fairy  Stories,  8,  9. 

Fictitious  letters,  38,  39. 

Folk-lore  of  Greece  and  Rome,  6. 

Frambotto,  53. 

Fraudulent  additions  to  Petronius,  55,  56,  57,  58. 

Getitle  Shepherd  of  Ramsay,  40. 
Gesta  Romanorum,  43,  44. 


Index  to  the  Introduction     199 

Ghost  Stories  in  antiquity,  12,   13,  14. 
Golden  Ass  of  Apuleius,  24,  41,  42. 
Gower,  John,  37. 
Greek  Fiction,   i,   2,  3. 

Hardy,  Thomas,  cited,  24. 

Hebert,  25. 

Heliodorus,  17. 

Herodotus,  16, 

Hetasrae  in  Greece,  3, 

Huet,  P.  D.,  56. 

Hysmine  and  Hysminias,  37. 

Incubo,  legend  of  the,  10,  11. 
Irving,  Washington,   14. 

John  Dietrich,  story  of,  11. 
John  of  Salisbury,  25,  51. 

KoBOLD,  legend  of  the,  10. 

Lamia,  legend  of,  11,  12. 
Lares,  9. 
Larva,  9,   10. 
Lemures,  10. 
Leprechaun,  10. 
Leucippe  and  CUtophon,  37. 
Longus,  39,  40. 
Lydian  Tales,  30. 

Manuscripts  of  Petronius,  52-59. 
Marchena,  forgery  by,  58. 


2  00    Index  to  the  Introduction 

Marinus  Statilius  (Pierre  Petit),  53. 

Marvels  beyond  Thule,  34. 

Mediaeval  fiction,  42,  43,  44. 

Mcndes,  Catulle,  22. 

Metamorphoses,    of  Lucius  of  Patrse,   41  ;    of  Apuleius, 

41,  42. 
Milesian  Tales,  20,  21,  22,  23,  24. 
Mormolyce,  12. 
Mulock,  Miss,  II. 

Nature  myths,  origin  of,  6,  7,  8. 

Naxian  Tales,  30. 

Nero,  46,  47,  49. 

Neronian  hypothesis  in  the  Satira  of  Petronius,  49. 

Nicetas  Eugenianus,  37. 

Nodot,  Francois,  forgery  by,  55,  56,  57. 

Odysseus  and  Polymela,  22,  23. 
Oriental  origin  of  Greek  fiction,  16,  17,  18,  19. 
Orientalism  in  ancient  fiction,  42. 
Orientalism  in  Greek  character,  2. 

Pallenian  Tales,  30. 

Parthenius,  20,  21,  22,  23,  24. 

Paul  et  Virginie,  40. 

Pericles,  Prince  of  Tyre,  source  of  the  play,  37. 

Persian  influence  in  Greek  fiction,   16. 

Persian  Wars,  their  influence  on  Greece,  33. 

Petronius  Arbiter,   41,   45,  46,  47,  48  ;   nationality  of, 

59,  60,  61. 
Phaedrus,  5. 
Plautus,  13. 


Index  to  the  Introduction    201 

Pliny  the  Younger,  14. 
P  o/y  me /a  of  Far  thenins,  22,  23. 
Prevost,  Marcel,  38. 
Primitive  superstitions,  7. 
Prose  fiction,  late  origin  of,  3. 
Prose  fiction  in  Greece,  i,  2,  3. 
Prose  fiction  in  Rome,  40,  41. 

Ramsay,  Allan,  40. 

Roman  fiction,  40,  41. 

Romantic  love  among  the  Greeks,  2. 

Romeo  and  Juliet,  source  of  the  story,  35. 

St.  Pierre,  Bernardin  de,  40. 

Satira  of  Petronius,  the,  45,  46,  47,  48,  49,  50  ; 
episodic  character  of,  50  ;  history  of  the  MSS.,  50, 
51,    52,    53,    54;  fraudulent  addition  to,    55,    56, 

57,  58. 
Scsvinus,  46. 
Scott,  Sir  Walter,  13. 
Severus,   17. 
Short  Story,  the,  16- 
Silia,  47. 
Sisenna,  41, 

Subjective  novel,  the,  39. 
Superstitions,   14. 
Sybaritic  Tales,  30. 

Tacitus,  45,  46,  48. 
Taylor,  Jeremy,  25. 
Theodorus  Prodromus,  37. 
Theophilus  of  Simocatta,  38. 
Tigellinus,  47. 


20  2    Index  to  the  Introduction 

Tragurian  Fragment,  the,  52,  53,  54,  55. 
Trojan  Tales,  30. 

Utopia  of  Sir  Thomas  More,  34. 

Vampires,  legend  of  the,  i  2. 
Vergil,  a  pupil  of  Parthenius,  20. 
Verne,  Jules,  35. 
Vicentius  of  Beauvais,  51. 
Voltaire's  Zadig,  25. 

Waver  ley,  cited,  13. 

Xenophon  of  Antioch,  17  ;  of  Ephesus,  17  ;  of  Cyprus, 
17  ;  of  Athens,  34. 

Zola,  fimile,  40. 


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